276 Transactions of the Canadian Institute. [vol. rx 



formation of water from oxygen and hydrogen probably does take place 

 at the ordinary temperature only so slowly that it is not detectable by 

 the means at our disposal. Changes in the rate of chemical reactions of 

 such a degree as this are familiar as the result of changes in temperature. 

 It is in fact the ruk that a change of temperature amounting to 10° C. in- 

 creases the rate of chemical reactions, other things being equal, between 

 two and three fold. If a reaction takes place at 10° C. with twice the ve- 

 locity that it has at 0°, it will at 20° C. take place with 4 times, at 30° C. 

 with 8 times, at 100° C. with 1024 times, and at 200°C. with more than a 

 million times that velocity. Now the formation of water from hydrogen 

 and oxygen is known to occur at 500° C. with a measurable velocity: if 

 this reaction is subject to such a change in velocity due to changes in 

 temperature as this, it is obvious that at the ordinary temperature of the 

 air, though the reaction still went on, it would be at a rate that could 

 never be detected. When therefore hydrogen and oxygen are made to 

 unite by means of platinum black, the platinum does not create a re- 

 action, though the change in the rate at which this reaction occurs is 

 so great that that is how it must appear to our senses. There are many 

 cases in which the reactions that we attribute to the action of enzymes 

 can be shown to be effected at high temperatures, in proportion to the 

 temperatures, without the assistance of enzymes, so that we may justly 

 infer that enzymes do not create chemical change but merely affect the 

 rate at which it occurs. 



If we accept this as true then in so far as the chemical changes in 

 living organisms are due to the action of enzymes, these changes which 

 appear to us as manifestations of the hidden forces of life, may become 

 merely reactions that are going on everywhere but at a different rate. 

 And the chemistry of life may in respect of them cease to be different in 

 kind from the chemistry of inanimate nature. Let us then see exactly 

 how we stand: where the labours of a hundred years have brought us 

 in the quesrt; of biological truth. We have in the quantitative 

 measurements that Lavoisier first showed men how to attempt, the proof 

 that life is a chemical phenomenon as capable of being expressed in math- 

 ematical terms as the movements of the heavenly bodies. We have 

 been shown that the structure and chemical constitution, if not of living 

 matter itself, at least of almost all the material in which the phenomena 

 of life are exhibited, can be exactly determined, and we are heirs to a 

 lively and reasonable faith that the constitution of what remains may 

 still be determined. And now we think we have been given a clue by 

 which we may come to see that there is no essential difference between the 

 chemistry of animate and inanimate nature however great the apparent 

 difference is. We can substitute for the metaphysical conception of 



