Most of us are idolators, and ascribe divine powers to the abstractions
"Force," "Gravity," "Vitality," which our own brains have created. I do
not know anything about "inert" things in nature. If we reduce the world
to matter and motion, the matter is not "inert," inasmuch as the same
amount of motion affects different kinds of matter in different ways.
To go back to my own illustration. The fabric of the watch is not inert,
every particle of it is in violent and rapid motion, and the winding-up
simply perturbs the whole infinitely complicated system in a particular
fashion. Equilibrium means death, because life is a succession of
changes, while a changing equilibrium is a contradiction m terms. I am
not at all clear that a living being is comparable to a machine running
down. On this side of the question the whirlpool affords a better
parallel than the watch. If you dam the stream above or below; the
whirlpool dies; just as the living being does if you cut off its food,
or choke it with its own waste products. And if you alter the sides or
bottom of the stream you may kill the whirlpool, just as you kill the
animal by interfering with its structure. Heat and oxidation as a source
of heat appear to supply energy to the living machine, the molecular
structure of the germ furnishing the "sides and bottom of the stream,"
that is, determining the results which the energy supplied shall
produce.