76 Natural Salvation. 



spend the millions which they even believe belong to 

 them. 



A hopeless phase of thought has come to many biolo- 

 gists from regarding the ordinary course of nature as final 

 for the human race. Whereas, nothing is more probable 

 than that we shall come to direct and control the proc- 

 esses of nature in the cell. What takes place in the 

 nucleus and the causes of nuclear exhaustion will yet be 

 found a very simple chemical problem. The control of 

 life in matter is unquestionably before us ; the entire prog- 

 ress and trend of research look to such achievements. 

 But for this outlook of hope, we might well accept the 

 dictum of Bichat, that " from infancy we die, day by day." 

 The cells of the soma develop in a certain way and to a 

 certain end; nor is there the least likelihood that the 

 human organism of its present physiological bent would 

 ever reach great length of life. 



We mean that the somatic cells, unaided by the human 

 intellect, would continue to produce an organism, subject 

 to growth and decline. The ancestry and nuclear endow- 

 ment of the cell carry it to a termination of its activities. 

 This is more apparent in the dark-skinned races of man- 

 kind than in the dominant race, and still more evident in 

 the lower animal orders. 



Lower unassisted nature would live and die in alternate 

 generations as long as the earth offered a foothold for life. 

 The chemical affinities and electric tension of terrestrial 



