174, WH AT IS LIFE 



order to be convinced of the absence of all essential 

 difference and all absolute discontinuity between 

 living and non-living matter."^" 



Max Verworn, late professor of physiology at the 

 University of Bonn, stated unqualifiedly: "An ele- 

 mentary difference between organisms and inorganic 

 systems does not exist."" 



Sir Jagadis C. Bose found many years ago that 

 metal, plant and animal show the same response to 

 certain stimuli, exhibiting "the same phenomena of 

 fatigue and depression, together with possibilities of 

 recovery and exaltation." "Among such phenom- 

 ena," says Bose, "how can we draw a line and say: 

 *Here life begins'? .... Such absolute barriers do 

 not exist."^^ 



Frederick Soddy, however, declares: "I accept 

 the, to my mind, complete break of continuity 



between the animate and inanimate worlds As 



a physicist or chemist, I hold that there is no mystery 

 in the proper sense in the inanimate universe, and 

 I put the Rubicon between mechanism and life."^^ 



Henry Fairfield Osborn (voicing the opinion of a 

 large number of students) in the closing words of 



^° The Nature and Origin of Life, 250. 

 '^ Pkysiologisches Praktikum fiir Mediziner, 1. 



12 Response in the Living and Non-living (1902); Plant Autographs and their 

 Revelations (1927). 



'' Science and Life, 154, 168. 



