life: its NATUEE, OEIGIN, and maintenance SCHAFEE. 499 



SIMILARITY OF PROCESSES OF GROWTH AND REPRODUCTION IN LIYING 

 AND NONLIVING MATTER. 



Should it be contended that growth and reproduction are proj^er- 

 ties possessed only by living bodies and constitute a test by which we 

 may differentiate between life and nonlife, between the animate and 

 inanimate creation, it must be replied that no contention can be more 

 fallacious. Inorganic crystals grow and multiply and reproduce their 

 like, given a supply of the requisite pabulum. In most cases for each 

 kind of crystal there is, as with living organisms, a limit of growth 

 which is not exceeded, and further increase of the crystalline matter 

 results not m further increase in size but in multiplication of similar 

 crystals. Leduc has shown that the growth and division of artificial 

 colloids of an inorganic nature, when placed in an appropriate 

 medium, present singular resemblances to the phenomena of the 

 growth and division of livuig organisms. Even so complex a process 

 as the division of a cell nucleus b}^ karyokinesis as a preliminary to 

 the multiplication of the cell by division — a phenomenon which would 

 prima facie have seemed and has been commonly regarded as a dis- 

 tinctive manifestation of the life of the cell — can be imitated with 

 solutions of a simple inorganic salt, such as chloride of sodium, con- 

 taining a suspension of carbon particles; which arrange and rearrange 

 themselves under the influence of the movements of the electrolytes 

 in a manner indistinguishable from that adopted by the particles 

 of chromatin in a dividing nucleus. And in the process of sexual 

 reproduction, the researches of J. Loeb and others upon the ova of 

 the sea urchin have proved that we can no longer consider such an 

 apparently vital i)henomenon as the fertilization of the egg as being 

 the result of living material brought to it by the spermatozoon, smce 

 it is possible to start the process of division of the ovum and the 

 resulting formation of cells, and ultimately of all the tissues and 

 organs — m shoft, to bring about the development of the whole 

 body — if a simple chemical reagent is substituted for the male 

 element in the process of fertilization. Indeed, even a mechanical 

 or electrical stimulus may suffice to start development. ''Kurz und 

 gut," as the Germans say, vitalism as a working hyjiothesis has not 

 only had its foundations undermined, but most of the superstructure 

 has toppled over, and if any difficulties of explanation still persist, 

 we arc justified in assuming tliat the cause is to be found in our im- 

 perfect knowledge of the constitution and workmg of liAdng material. 

 At the best, vitalism explains nothing, and the term ''vital force" is 

 an expression of ignorance which can brnig us no further along the 

 path of knowledge. Nor is the problem in any way advanced by 

 substitutmg for the term "vitalism" "neo vitalism," and for "vital 

 force " " bio tic energy." * "New presbyter is but old priest writ large." 



• B. Moore, in Recent Advances in Physiology, 1906; Moore and Roaf, ibid.; and Further Advances in 

 Physiology, 1909. Moore lays especial stress on the transformations of energy which occur in protoplasm. 

 Sec on the question of vitalism Gley (Revue Scientifique, 1911) and D'Arcy Thompson (address to Section 

 D at Portsmouth, 1911). 



