THE UNITY OF NATURE. 25 



has organized itself by the creation of services of entry and exit of 

 materials of reaction, precisely as we organize our factories 

 industrially." 



The cicatrization of the scar that covers former severed contin- 

 uity between the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms is almost com- 

 plete. 



Now we come to the last gap between the Vegetable and Miner- 

 al Kingdoms. This seems an unbridgable gulf, but I will give 

 you the latest scientific notes on the subject, and you can think 

 them over and judge for yourself if you can see where the organic 

 world leaves off and the inorganic commences. I will quote ad 

 verba tum as nearly as possible. 



The latest attempt to explain the phenomena of life on purely 

 physical grounds is made by Dr. Benedickt, professor in the 

 University of Vienna, in a book entitled "Biomechanism, or Neo- 

 Vitfilism in Medicine and Biology." In this he maintains that 

 different organs and organisms, their functions, changes, and 

 multiplications, are due only "to the properties of the substances 

 that compose them, and to divers combinations of forces." 



This is no new doctrine, but the writer skillfully upholds it. by 

 correlating with it some of the latest results of investigation both 

 in biology and physics. In a supplement, written by Dr. 

 Benedickt for the French edition of his book, he states his theories 

 concisely in a few pages whose contents are quoted in the Revue 

 Scientifique, Nov. 14th. 



In the first place the author directs attention to the points of 

 similarity between crystallization and organic growth, which, he 

 asserts, are becoming more noticeable with each advance in our 

 knowledge of the process. The old suspension theory of solution 

 he regards as dead. Dissolved bodies, he tells us, are not in a 

 state of suspension. Solution is a sort of chemical combination. 

 He goes on to say that Schroen, of Naples, who has made a still 

 closer study of these facts, has succeeded in following the pheno- 

 mena that precede the formation of a crystal. His investiga- 

 tions have been, so to speak, cinematoscopic. Microphotographic 

 views were enlarged and thrown on a screen, enabling him to 

 make a thorough study of the process. Dr . Benedickt says : — 



"Schroen observed, in a large number of salts, certain precry- 

 stalline states. First, there develops a plasma without deter- 



