254 LIFE AND DEATH. 



quite chimerical, and akin to Kepler's dreamy visions. 

 But in a certain way it accords with contemporary 

 ideas concerning the life of matter. It is related to 

 them by the evolution which it implies in the materials 

 of the terrestrial globe. 



According to Preyer, primitive life existed in fire. 

 Being igneous masses in fusion, the pyrozoa lived 

 after their own manner; their vitality, slowly modified, 

 assumed the form which it presents to-day. Yet, in 

 this profound transformation their number has not 

 varied, and the total quantity of life in the universe 

 has remained unchanged. 



Here we recognize the ideas of Buffon. These 

 cosmozoa, these pyrozoa, have a singular resemblance 

 to the organic molecules of "live matter" of the 

 illustrious naturalist — distributed everywhere, in- 

 destructible, and forming living structures by their 

 concentration. 



But we must leave these scientific or philosophical 

 theories, and come to arguments based upon facts. 



It is in a spirit quite different from that of the 

 poets, the metaphysicians, and the more or less 

 philosophical scientists that the science of our days 

 looks at the more or less obscure vitality of inanimate 

 bodies. It claims that we may recognize in them, 

 in a more or less rudimentary state, the action 

 of the factors which intervene in the case of living 

 beings, the manifestation of the same fundamental 

 properties. 



