INTRODUCTORY 7 



not, any more than the other experiments, prove that life 

 is the result of chemical reaction. 



Upon the subject of Professor Schafer's statement that 

 there is not a great difference between dead and living 

 matter, I have to say that there is this difference : — Suppos- 

 ing both to be structurally perfect one is dependent upon an 

 outside and artificial source of energy while the other forms 

 part of a continuously active natural circuit. Mere move- 

 ment is not life, for the motions of the amoeba can be imitated 

 by means of oil and soap and water ; growth does not 

 necessarily postulate life, for the cancer-cell proliferates and 

 disintegrates in so doing. If to live is to be natural the 

 cancer-cell is never alive, for it is never perfectly formed. 

 You may simulate life by exciting excised cells into action 

 by artificial stimuli but they are just pieces of mechanism 

 — nothing more. Life is exemplified by the perfected 

 organism, if not sentient at least exercising to the full the 

 functions for which it was created. 



Dr. Waller, in his Signs of Life, examines the problem of 

 the unplanted seed. He says : " Now dry seeds kept for 

 long periods in hermetically sealed vessels, have not been 

 found to manifest any evidence of the most fundamental 

 and general chemical change occurring in living matter, 

 viz., a production of CO'^. Their chemical reply to the 

 question, ' Are you alive ? ' has been ' No.' 



" But does this negative answer, ' Not alive,' imply 

 that such seeds are dead ? Evidently not, as may be seen 

 if under suitable conditions of temperature, moisture, and 

 80 forth, they are found to germinate, and grow into plants. 

 So that a seed, in so far as it does not manifest chemical 

 change, is not proved to be living ; and, inasmuch as it 

 germinates, is proved not to be dead. Evidently here is a 

 dilemma ; in the absence of an objective chemical sign 

 of life, we have no right to say that a seed is alive ; it is, 

 so far as we can tell, not alive ; in the presence of its subse- 

 quent germination we are assured that it is living and that 

 therefore it was not dead. And the usual manner of escape 

 from this dilemma of the seed which is neither living nor 

 dead is to say that it is in a state of latent life, during which 



