THE ACTIVITIES OF THE ORGANISM 85 



them they disappear, and a quantity of water, equal 

 in weight to the sum of their weights, appears in their 

 place. There is not the slightest parity between the 

 passive and active powers of the water and those of 

 the oxygen and hydrogen that have given rise to it. 

 . . . We call these and many other phenomena, the 

 properties of water, and we do not hesitate to believe 

 that in some way they result from the properties of 

 the component elements of the water. We do not 

 assume that a something called ' aquosity ' entered 

 into and took possession of the oxide of hydrogen as 

 soon as it was formed and guided the aqueous particles 

 to their places in the facets of the crystal, or among 

 the leaflets of the hoar frost." 



' Is the case in any way changed when carbonic 

 acid, water, and ammonia disappear, and in their place, 

 under the influence of pre-existing protoplasm, an 

 equivalent weight of the matter of life makes its 

 appearance ? ' 



' It is true that there is no sort of parity between 

 the properties of the components and the properties of 

 the resultant. But neither was there in the case of 

 water. It is also true that the influence of pre-existing 

 protoplasm is something quite unintelligible. But 

 does anyone quite understand the modus operandi of 

 an electric spark which traverses a mixture of oxygen 

 and hydrogen ? What justification is there, then, for 

 the assumption of the existence in the living matter 

 of a something which has no representative or correla- 

 tive in the non-living matter which gave rise to it ? ' 



All the investigations of over forty years leave 

 nothing to be added to this statement of what, in 

 Huxley's days, was called materialistic biology. It 

 was a very unpopular statement to make then, but it 

 has become rather fashionable now. Let the reader 



