LIFE AS MECHANISM 

 simplest plants to those of a consciously psychical 

 nature presented by man and numerous other ani- 

 mals, result from the chemical reaction between the 

 organism and the respiratory gases they take, oxygen 

 being almost certainly the effective gas for nearly all 

 animals. An essential implication of this proposition 

 is that every living individual organism has the value, 

 chemically speaking, of an elementary chemical sub- 

 stance."^*' If anything could add to the complexities 

 of the chemist it would be to consider a living man as 

 an elementary chemical substance. So far the chemist 

 has had to destroy life before he can experiment with 

 organic substances and if he kills the living man he 

 loses this new elementary life-substance and his ex- 

 perimental object changes into the known inorganic 

 elements. 



This discussion of the cell has gone into too great 

 a length, but it should be remembered that the link 

 of biology to physics and chemistry is supposed to be 

 the cell. And if the cell-theory falls, then the chief 

 support of the mechanistic philosophy of life and evo- 

 lution is destroyed. We may sum up our argument by 

 referring to Huxley's illustration of life by this theo- 

 ry, for no one has given it in more vivid form. 



Huxley gives the following picturesque account of 

 the development of the adult from the ovum. He says 

 each being passes from a rudimentary to its perfect 

 condition, through a series of changes which are called 



30 Ibid., vol. II, p. 286. 



1:2893 



