THE ORGANISM 51 



gious weight. {See Molecule.) Carbon compounds 

 are much less stable than inorganic products toward 

 physical and chemical reagents. Though there is 

 no hard and fast dividing line between polar and 

 non-polar substances, broadly speaking, organic sub- 

 stances are non-polar as distinguished from inor- 

 ganic substances (polar). {See pp. 92, 176.) Certain 

 chemical reactions take place at a lower tempera- 

 ture in the living organism than in the inorganic. 

 Numerous organic compounds contain the same ele- 

 ments in the same proportions, and yet show marked 

 differences of properties. Thus there are 135 com- 

 pounds of one formula. (Isomerism, practically 

 limited to the organic.) 



Air is an essential factor to nearly all organisms, 

 the only exceptions being a class of bacteria (ana- 

 erobia) that thrive without free oxygen. Take an 

 organism — one of the higher organisms, or say, a 

 man — in full vigor of life and health: if he be de- 

 prived of air for only a few minutes, he dies. All 

 efforts to restore him fail. Life cannot be restored. 

 Jacques Loeb observes: "Death in these, i.e., higher 

 animals, is due to cessations of oxidations, but the 

 surprising fact is that if the oxidations have been 

 interrupted but a few minutes life cannot be restored 

 even by artificial respiration."^ That oxygen is neces- 



* The Organism as a Whole, 359. 



