57 6 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



the latter has now been ascertained to be far less inert in 

 regard at least to the particles which compose it than was once 

 supposed. And if the simple organism, alive in the same sense 

 as the complex is alive, derived its animation from an original 

 germination from the inorganic, it would then seem clear that 

 the complex owed its vital characteristics to the same source. 

 For what is it that brings about the antithesis of life or death ? 

 In the lower as in the higher organism, it is the failure ol 

 functional concordance and the cessation of a particular series 

 of exchanges with the environment. There is in all organisms 

 a point beyond which lesions or mutilations cannot be incurred 

 without the causation of death and the point is reached when 

 one or more of the organs is cut off without which the functional 

 harmony and the necessary chemical exchanges cannot be 

 maintained. As long as the cerebral, digestive and circulatory 

 processes are at all possible, the organism can live, a consider- 

 able time at least, notwithstanding the loss of many of its 

 members. A man can still exist after having been deprived 

 either of both arms and legs, one kidney and one lung, a 

 stomach and a portion of the intestines, because these losses 

 do not put an end to the somatic process. An earthworm 

 may be greatly mutilated and yet continue to exist. Life 

 can be maintained for a time in the lower animals after the 

 excision of the brain, because the bio-chemistry continues 

 even in the absence of the thought organ. If vital principle 

 there be, it is not an independent one but a general concordance 

 of certain materials in a special relation to each other and to 

 the forces of the exterior world. To seek an extraneous origin 

 for life or a guiding principle of life is equivalent to seeking 

 the first causes of the chemistry of nature. Before attempting 

 such a task it is better to be sure that the whole effects ot 

 that chemistry have been understood. If life as we know it 

 should be ascertained to depend on certain physico-chemical 

 activities, we should then be justified in thinking that its 

 origin was wholly due to the same forces. And there is 

 little doubt that we are moving to that conclusion. The 

 conditions under which life appeared were no doubt special 

 but the matter involved can have undergone little change and 

 it seems that if we could reproduce the conditions in which 

 life first germinated, we should be able to reproduce at least 

 the form in which it first appeared. 



