THE UNITY OF NATURE. 27 



lof?ic does not. exclude thi"* possibility.'' 



The writer now j^oes on to explain the bearing: of some modern 

 chemical ideas on his theory of the origin of life. The mode of 

 action called catalvsis, he reminds us, has lately been the object 

 of special study. This is the property possessed bv certain sub- 

 stances of promoting or retarding chemical action without being 

 themselve-* chemically altered. These substances the writer pro- 

 poses to call inducts-composers and inducts-coherers. They may 

 act at the same point without neutralizing each other's 

 action, and it is in this way, according to the writer, that tonics 

 at the same time favor the chemical decomposition of waste ])ro- 

 ducts, and stimulate tissiie formation. Froin some such i)lay of 

 chemical forco as this, he would have us understand, the change 

 of dead to living matter arose, and still arises. According to 

 Benedickt this spontaneous generation took place in thousands of 

 places and in thousands of conditions, but because the conditions 

 were largely similar, similar organisms resulted He would then, 

 it would seem, reject the universal relationship of living beings 

 except as we may consider it to inhere in origin from the same 

 combinations of inorganic substances. The writer closes with a 

 promise to apply his biomechanical ])rinciples to a variety of 

 problems in anatomy and ph.ysiology, and he has confidence that 

 this method of treatment will be productive of great results for 

 science. 



Whether this occurs or not it certainly is one of the most 

 audacious theories lately promulgated. These men from their 

 position must certainly be men of authority, each in his own de- 

 partment, and their word carries proi)ortionate weight. Their 

 experiments also seem to have been carried on with care and also 

 with the aid of microphotography, a process that cannot be dis- 

 puted, and we will only await results, and accept the truth al- 

 though the heavens fall. 



But in the meantime, I ask you if this should happen to be 

 true, what becomes of that last gap between the Mineral and 

 Vegetable Kingdoms? Where are last year's snows? 



There is an interdependence and unity in Nature's works, only 

 fragments of which we can as yet grasp, for it is only 



"He who through vast immensity can pierce. 

 See worlds on worlds compose one universe. 



