702 NATURAL SCIENCE. 



Nov., 



The book reveals its origin in many excellent features. It is 

 clear, orderly, historical. The problems are stated in striking ways ; 

 the expositions of current views, and of any modifications of them, 

 are simple and direct. 



The first and smaller half of the book is on life. It is a detailed 

 comparison between the so-called "organic" and " inorganic." The 

 general point of view is summed up by the author : — " La matiere 

 dite brute est vivante. La vie de la matiere brute et la vie de 

 la matiere vivante sont deux aspects, deux moments dififerents 

 de la vie. La vie est partout, I'esprit est partout." " So-called 

 inorganic matter is living. The life of inorganic matter and the 

 life of organic matter are two faces of life, two kinds of its 

 energy. Life is everywhere; mind is everywhere." It is an exact 

 and careful attempt to prove and illustrate a theory closely resembling 

 W. K. Clifford's double-faced unity. Most of the barriers between 

 organic and inorganic substances have now been broken down. 

 Substance after substance naturally formed by animals or plants 

 have been built up in the laboratories of chemists. Sensitiveness, 

 movement, growth, individuality, are all questions of degree, and are 

 not the exclusive privilege of living matter. Professor Sabatier makes 

 a detailed examination of the phenomena of life, and finds strict 

 parallels for them all in inorganic substances. The second and 

 larger part of the book is devoted to death ; for the author, 

 although he has minimised the differences between living and dead 

 matter, by no means assumes that he has removed the sting from 

 death. 



He gives a careful and exceedingly useful account of the con- 

 tributions to the question of all the most important writers, and makes 

 very pretty critical play among their theories. His own theory is 

 elaborately and somewhat discursively treated. Shortly, it seems to 

 be this : Primitive, unspecialised protoplasm is immortal — at least 

 potentially. So long as conditions are favourable, it would continue 

 to feed, grow, and reproduce. But protoplasm has not remained 

 primitive. Even in the Protozoa it has become specialised, and in 

 the tissues of higher animals becomes increasingly specialised. One 

 result of this is that the power of reproduction becomes limited, and 

 death finally appears. In the Protozoa it may be periodically staved 

 off by conjugation. In the Metazoa certain tissues — notably epithelia 

 — retain for a time the embryonic facility of reproduction and for a 

 time are able to repair the organism. In connection with such tissues 

 the germinal cells arise, and thus reproduction of the whole animal is 

 closely connected with reparation of its parts. But the germinal cells 

 having been formed, the germinal tissues, like all other tissues, 

 ultimately become senescent. Death is the price of specialisation, 

 the penalty paid for progress. 



So far, there is nothing very novel or suggestive in Professor 

 Sabatier's book. If there were nothing more, it might be left as an 

 admirable and able review of the subjects by a learned biologist. I 

 have purposely left for separate treatment what seems his most 

 important idea, an idea which has no doubt occurred to most biologists, 

 but which certainly never before has received so striking and 

 suggestive consideration. 



It has long been held that the most peculiar feature of proto- 

 plasm, the very abstraction of life, is its production only in the presence 

 of already formed protoplasm. Oiniie vivmit e vivo : there may be in a 

 flask or a ditch all the constituents of protoplasm, but even under the 

 most suitable conditions these constituents do not come together 



