CHAPTER V 



THE BIOTIC STATE OF ENERGY 



If the attempt be now made to determine further as to the 

 possible existence and action of a biotic energy, it mil be at once 

 accepted that a distinct difference exists, between the simplest 

 Acaryota at present known to us and inorganic bodies, in that 

 the former possess what we call life. Now whatever life be, 

 and no matter what extension or intension we give to the term, 

 it must be conceded that life is an exhibition of energy. True, 

 it is always and only associated with a definite complex of 

 molecules, but even "when life has fled" these molecules remain, 

 though they at once begin to break doT;\Ti into simpler com- 

 pounds. Or rather one might say, from all the evidence to 

 hand, that at the same instant that life is extinguished the 

 molecules disrupt, and contrari^vase, as life becomes increasingly 

 evident in even the minutest cell, the molecules are in process 

 of being built up and multiplied. 



WTiether it be the sluggishly growing and dividing cells 

 of Sarcina or Gloeocapsa, the slowly gliding and waving cells 

 of an Oscillatoria thread, the energetic, delicately chemotactic 

 and actively multiplying cell of a Bacillus, the fundamental 

 law evidently is that inert ether particles charged T\'ith an 

 intra-molecular supply of energy are as exactly and accurately 

 linked to each other as are the molecules in a crystal, and all 

 available evidence indicates that this combination alone gives 

 them their living characters. Life then might be defined as: 

 "Relatively similar complexity and synchronism of motion of 

 quinary, hexary, and heptary compounds, that represent similar 

 complex definiteness of structure and similar lines of flow of 

 biotic energy." 



When the life-energy ceases to flow, even though abundant 

 supplies of electric, chemic, and thermic energy be applied, 



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