i.] ARE SEEDS LIVING OR DEAD? 5 



the vexed question whether a seed (or a dry rotifer, or a hen's 

 egg, or a tissue completely " anaesthetised ") is alive or dead. 



We shall have to recognise that the one general and all- 

 embracing sign of life, whether we consider a complete organism, 

 or a single organ, or an isolated part of an organ, is Movement- 

 movement of the whole mass, or that movement of its molecules 

 which we characterise as physical and chemical and physico- 

 chemical. All living matter is the seat of chemical change, or if 

 you prefer it, physical or physico-chemical change. 



Now dry seeds, kept for long periods in hermetically closed 

 vessels, have not been found to manifest any evidence of the 

 most fundamental and general chemical change occurring in 

 living matter, viz., a production of CO. 2 . Their chemical reply 

 to the question, " Are you alive ? " has been " No." 



But does this negative answer " not-alive " imply that such 

 seeds are dead ? Evidently not, as may be seen if under suitable 

 conditions of temperature, moisture, and so forth, they are found 

 to germinate and grow into plants. So that a seed, in so far as 

 it does not manifest chemical change, is not proved to be living ; 

 and, inasmuch as it germinates, is proved not to be dead. 

 Evidently, here is a dilemma ; in the absence of an objective 

 chemical sign of life, we have no right to say that a seed is alive ; 

 it is, as far as we can tell, not-alive ; in the presence of its 

 subsequent germination we are assured that it is living, and that 

 therefore it was not dead. And the usual manner of escape 

 from this dilemma of the seed which is neither living nor dead, 

 is to say that it is in a state of latent life, during which there is 

 a complete suspension of chemical changes characteristic of the 

 living state. 



I will not, at this early stage, stop to comment upon the 

 contradiction involved in this form of words, nor upon the fact 

 that it involves contradiction of the fundamental axiom that the 

 essential attribute and objective sign of the living state is 

 chemical movement. But I will offer for your consideration a 

 different mode of escape from the dilemma. 



It is possible or rather certain firstly, that our means of 

 chemical investigation are not refined enough to reveal to us 

 the smallest and most infinitesimal changes that may be going 



