LATENT LIFE—BECQUEREL. 549 
proof of the interruption of life without destroying its power of resus- 
citation and without leaving any mark to make one suspect the exist- 
ence of a limit to its prolongation in the case of both seeds and spores, 
is, Moreover, a good argument against certain neovitalistic theories. 
It demonstrates the actuality of the strong persistence of vital phe- 
nomena and exposes the unstableness of the basis of the definition 
of life accepted and promulgated by such scientists as Grasset, 
Bundge, Reinke, and Lodge.* 
According to the definition of this last author, in his little work, 
La vie et la matiére, life is a particular force, ‘“‘a special directive 
power issuing from a world in which physics and chemistry have no 
part, a world that it is impossible for us to know through our senses.” 
But after the results of all my experiments, which confirm the 
ingenious views of Claude Bernard, it can no longer be affirmed that 
life is a principle or a mysterious directive force escaping the influence 
of natural phenomena. 
Life is nothing more than the extremely complex physicochemical 
functioning of protoplasmic organisms produced by their incessant 
relations, their continual exchanges of elemental matter, and the differ- 
ent forms of energy. 
IX. THE BIOLOGICAL IMPORTANCE OF LATENT LIFE. 
This study of latent life not only brings us preciseness as to the 
nature of life and of death, but it touches also on the biological prob- 
lems concerning the dissemination and conservation of life. 
In fact, this peculiar property of latent life confers on all organisms 
that possess it the power to traverse time and space. It is to be noted 
that the seeds which preserve their germinative power the longest are 
almost always heavy ones which can not be transported by the wind, 
and which if buried must wait during a long time conditions favora- 
ble to their germination and growth. Most of these seeds belong to 
the families Leguminose, Nelumbonacee, Myrtacez, Malvacez, and 
Cistaceze. The same remark applies to the eggs of certain crusta- 
ceans which are deposited in the mud of ditches, marshes, and streams 
which often run dry. Thus, Giard, in his researches on anhydrobiosis, 
informs us that the dried eggs of Apus survived for 12 years until the 
arrival of the water necessary for hatching. 
Many bacteria profit by their state of latent life to await for years a 
time favorable for their multiplication. It is in this way that dan- 
gerous epidemics suddenly appear. 
As Pasteur has shown, anthrax germs from a buried sheep brought 
to the surface of the earth by earthworms sooner or later make a pas- 
ture dangerous to the flocks. In the same way the wretched hovels 
in which people die of tuberculosis from generation to generation, 
1 Lodge, La vie et la matiére. Alcan, Paris, 1907. 
