MODERN BIOLOGY 373 



as other functions of the brain, are organic chemical processes, as well as, 

 for instance, those of the abdomen, the intestines, the lungs, the glands, 

 etc.; but here chemistry rises to a higher plane, where our spiritual research 

 can never reach her." Even La Mettrie himself has never expressed himself 

 more clearly, and though he adds in a note on materialism that "it is not 

 in accord with our hope and our practical innate feeling regarding the im- 

 mortality of soul," yet, in view of what has been said above, this makes but 

 little impression. It is obvious that a man like Israel Hwasser must have felt 

 antipathy for the man and the university whence such words originated. 



When, later, it becomes a question of applying in detail the mechani- 

 cal theory in life, Berzelius, like so many of his predecessors and successors, 

 gives way to the temptation to simplify too much, and in spite of his honest 

 endeavours he is unable to free himself from speculative construction. Under 

 the heading "Principle Components of the Animal Body" he declares that 

 "the phenomena of animal life are divided into two systems, the nerves and 

 the other organs. Life is really placed in the former, and through them the 

 animal lives for the moment. The latter, on the other hand, promote those 

 conditions whereby the animal is to live in the immediate future." The nerve 

 system thus represents the essential difference between organic and inorganic 

 nature; the plants, therefore, must also possess nerves, although they are 

 still unknown. This contrast between the nervous system as the real con- 

 servator of life and the other organs, which are called instrumental organs, 

 is just as unnatural as Bichat's theory of the two lives, which Berzelius 

 criticizes, and the idea that life cannot exist except in a nervous system is 

 still more unfortunate. The functions of the nervous system are, according 

 to Berzelius, unknown, and he utters a serious warning against adducing 

 electrical and other forces to explain what one does not understand. He has 

 only vague ideas of the structure of the brain and the nerves; he takes no 

 account of Malpighi's microscopical discoveries and Swedenborg's appli- 

 cation of them. Moreover, he makes a number of unfelicitous assertions 

 regarding the vascular system; he believes that the capillaries open out be- 

 tween the organs and that the latter grow up as a result of a stratification 

 of solid matter around the opening — "a kind of crystallization." In this 

 connexion it may be mentioned that he believes in the spontaneous genera- 

 tion of lower animals. On the other hand, his description of fertilization is 

 clear and definite; he frankly acknowledges the inability of science at that 

 time to explain the process, and his ideas on the development of the tgg 

 are extraordinarily clear, considering they were arrived at twenty years be- 

 fore von Baer's epoch-making discovery. 



Berzelius, therefore, cannot be said to have been a very deep thinker in 

 the sphere of theoretical natural science, as was Galileo, for example, but 

 his honest and modest acknowledgment of the limitations of natural science 



