THE BREATH OF LIFE 



undoubtedly in that nature and disposition of the 

 biological molecules that Tyndall's whole "mystery 

 and miracle of vitality" is wrapped up. If we could 

 only grasp what it is that transforms the molecule 

 of dead matter into the living molecule! Pasteur 

 called it "dissymmetric force," which is only a new 

 name for the mystery. He believed there was an 

 "irrefragable physical barrier between organic and 

 inorganic nature" that the molecules of an or- 

 ganism differed from those of a mineral, and for this 

 difference he found a name. 



in 



There seems to have been of late years a marked 

 reaction, even among men of science, from the 

 mechanistic conception of life as held by the band 

 of scientists to which I have referred. Something 

 like a new vitalism is making headway both on the 

 Continent and in Great Britain. Its exponents urge 

 that biological problems "defy any attempt at a 

 mechanical explanation." These men stand for the 

 idea "of the creative individuality of organisms" 

 and that the main factors in organic evolution can- 

 not be accounted for by the forces already operative 

 in the inorganic world. 



There is, of course, a mathematical chance that 



in the endless changes and permutations of inert 



matter the four principal elements that make up a 



living body may fall or run together in just that 



32 



