34 DEFENSIVE FERMENTS OF THE ANIMAL ORGANISM 



produced in a workshop if machines were suddenly 

 supplied with unsuitable material. All of them would 

 soon refuse to work and come to a standstill. The 

 single workman, who, with his knowledge and his 

 tools, is trained only for a single phase in the pro- 

 duction of a complicated whole, would be helpless if 

 he were suddenly ordered to undertake a new task. 

 He would require new tools, and be forced to acquire 

 new experience. If his duties changed without any 

 regularity at all, i.e., were he restricted in his 

 activities to any casual work that might be given 

 to him, then any successful results would be entirely 

 out of the question. We find exactly the same 

 relation in the collective mass of cells which compose 

 our organism. The single cells represent the 

 machines and the workmen who, in an enormous 

 workshop, pursue common aims in separate groups. 

 The cells of the gut and its accessory glands, 

 especially those of the liver, superintend in a certain 

 degree the supply of raw material, which is 

 first prepared in a proper manner, and then recast 

 so as to be ' palatable ' to all the cells ; after which 

 it passes from hand to hand from one cell to 

 another. 



Tn these considerations it is not only the purely 

 chemical processes that have to be taken into account ; 

 the physical processes also play an important role. 

 Every cell possesses substances which have an 



