CHAPTER I. 



COMPARISON OF INORGANIC BODIES WITH LIVING BODIES, FOL- 

 LOWED BY A PARALLEL BETWEEN ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 



I LONG ago conceived the idea of making a comparison between 

 organised living bodies and crude inorganic bodies. I then noticed 

 the extreme difference existing between these two, and I became 

 convinced of the necessity for examining the kind and amount of this 

 difference. It was at that time the general custom to present the 

 three kingdoms of nature arranged in a Une, with class distinctions 

 between them ; and the enormous difference apparently was not 

 perceived between a living body and a crude lifeless body. 



Yet if we wish to arrive at a real knowledge of what constitutes 

 life, what it consists of, what are the causes and laws which control 

 so wonderful a natural phenomenon, and how life itself can originate 

 those numerous and astonishing phenomena exhibited by living bodies, 

 we must above all pay very close attention to the differences existing 

 between inorganic and Uving bodies ; and for this purpose a comparison 

 must be made between the essential characters of these two kinds of 

 bodies. 



Comparison between the Characters of Inorganic Bodies 

 AND those of Living Bodies. 



1. No crude or inorganic body possesses individuahty except in its 

 integral molecule ; the solid, fluid or gaseous masses that may be formed 

 by a collection of integral molecules have no limits ; and the large or 

 small size of these masses neither adds nor subtracts anything that 

 can alter the nature of the body concerned ; for this nature is ex- 

 clusively dependent on that of the integral molecule of the body. 



Every living body, on the other hand, possesses an individuality 

 throughout its mass and volume ; and this individuahty, simple in 

 some and compound in others, is never confined in Uving bodies to that 

 of their component molecules. 



