THE ORG AN ISM 57 



life-processes are accompanied by electrical phe- 

 nomena. Thus, functional change in a tissue, the 

 beat of the heart, every twitch of a muscle, the 

 secretion of a gland, the stirring of life in the seed 

 of a plant, the beginning of life in the hen's Q:gg — all 

 are accompanied by electrical phenomena. Indeed, 

 A. D. Waller's experiments employ a method of 

 galvanometric tests whereby living things such as 

 eggs, leaves, various organs, respond with a "blaze 

 current" and Waller speaks of "electricity as a 

 sign of life." For, the same things when dead do 

 not respond electrically. 



Much research, covering many years, with which 

 names such as Fere, Veraguth, Tarchanov, Tiger- 

 stedt, and Boris Sidis are connected, has shown that 

 all excitations — sensory, tactile, somatic, etc., — and 

 all human emotion and even abstract thought, cause 

 galvanometric deflections. 



Various facts, indeed an overwhelming array of 

 facts, indicate that similar laws apply to life-processes 

 and to the inorganic. There is the laboratory syn- 

 thesis of numerous substances that formerly were 

 thought to be products exclusively of life. The dis- 

 covery of the first synthetic vitamin is a recent 

 achievement. An electrical machine, constructed 

 by John Hays Hammond, Jr., has duplicated the 

 helio tropic movements of heliotropic organisms. In 



