68 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



then surely the existing affinities would exert their influence, and the 

 higher compound would be restored in its former integrity and com- 

 pleteness. This expressed in the language of chemistry is exactly 

 what in reality occurs. 



The union of the disintegrated protoplasm with complemental ma- 

 terial, furnished by the medium, can be directly witnessed without any 

 possibility of misapprehension. We see the disintegrated protoplasm. 

 We see it combine with substances drifted to it bv the medium, and 

 we see it in consequence reassume its former state. 



Now, at last, we have actually entered the threshold of organiza- 

 tion. We have discovered the fundamental fact of its statics. We 

 know positively that reintegration of the living substance, restoration 

 of the disturbed vital equilibrium, is the work of preestablished chemi- 

 cal affinities, and that it requires extraneous matter of a specific kind 

 to enable this restitution to take place. 



The statical aspect of all organization offers nothing but a compli- 

 cation of this one event of chemical equilibrium, a vast complication in 

 the molecular gradations of functionally disintegrated protoplasm, a 

 vast complication also in the gradations of restitutive material. 



The integration and differentiation of vital function on the one 

 hand, and the preparation and composition of food-material on the 

 other hand, form as we will become fully aware further on the two 

 great divisions in the subject-matter of the science of organization, 

 divisions corresponding to the fundamental biplicity of all advanced 

 organization, its animal and its vegetative life. Organization in the 

 sphere of animal life is the expression of the development of manifold 

 outside relations in the vital unit. Organization in the sphere of vege- 

 tative life is the expression of the preparation of more and more elabo- 

 rate material, fit to restore the functional waste of those developed 

 relations. 



I believe no candid critic can deny that the above related observa- 

 tions have laid open to inspection the secret mechanism of life ; have 

 reduced to the domain of operations known in the inorganic world the 

 performances that, in a primitive state of life, visibly constitute vital 

 activity. 



With little more mental exertion than is required for the faithful 

 interpretation of obvious appearances, a scientific feat has been accom- 

 plished which but yesterday seemed totally impracticable. I am aware 

 that, on account of its strange simplicity, many will deem that, after 

 all, not much advantage has been gained by it. But let no one deceive 

 himself in this. By dint of this internal as well as external under- 

 standing of motility, we know at this very moment more, much more, 

 about the property of life in the living substance than we do of any 

 other property belonging to any other substance. 



We clearly conceive the manner how, and the conditions by which, 

 motility, this most prominent vital manifestation, constitutes an inher- 



