122 LIFE AND DEATH. 



not repeat the course of the energetic flux in the 

 animal organism. The heat is not transformed into 

 anything. It is simply dissipated. 



TJie Part played by Animal Heat as a Condition of 

 Physiological Manifestations. — Does this mean that 

 heat is useless to life in the very beings in which it is 

 most abundantly produced — i.e.^ in man and in the. 

 warm-blooded vertebrates ? So far from this being so, 

 it is necessary to life. But its utility has a peculiar 

 character which must neither be misunderstood nor 

 exaggerated. It is not transformed into chemical 

 or vital reactions, but merely creates for them a 

 favourable condition. 



According to the first principle of energetics, for 

 the vital fact to be derived from the thermal fact, the 

 heat must be preliminarily transformed into chemical 

 energy, since chemical energy is necessarily an ante- 

 cedent and generating form of vital energy. Now 

 this regressive transformation is impossible according 

 to the current theories of general physics. The part 

 played by heat in the act of chemical combination is 

 that of a primer to the reaction. It consists in placing 

 the reacting bodies, by changing their state or by 

 modifying their temperature, in the condition in which 

 they ought to be for the chemical forces to come into 

 play. For example, in the combination of hydrogen 

 and oxygen by setting light to an explosive mixture, 

 heat only acts as a primer to the phenomenon, because 

 the two gases which are passive at ordinary tempera- 

 tures, require to be raised to 400° C. before chemical 

 affinity comes into play. And so it is with the 

 reactions which go on in the organism. They have 

 a maximum temperature, and the part played by 

 animal heat is to furnish them with it. 



