ON THE VITALISTIC VIEW OF NATURE. 433 



definition which has been put forth in various ways 

 ever since Lavoisier's time, when he and Laplace tried 

 to explain the existence of animal heat in this manner. 

 The progress of science in the course of the century 

 which followed Lavoisier has more and more confirmed 

 the importance of the rdle which oxygen plays, but has 

 also shown how very complex are the products of 

 oxygenation in the living organism, how the living 

 processes are indeed chemical processes, but are quite 

 different from those of the chemical laboratory. As 

 Claude Bernard says, " The chemistry of the laboratory 

 is carried on by means of reagents and apparatus 

 which the chemist has prepared, and the chemistry 

 of the living being is carried on by means of reagents 

 and apparatus which the organism has prepared." * 

 One of the great performances of living matter is 

 the production, another is the storing up and distri- 

 bution, of oxygen. But though we know that the 

 chlorophyll - containing cells of green plants, under 

 the influence of sunlight, are able to decompose that 

 very inert body, carbonic acid, breathed out by both 

 animals and plants, into free oxygen and carbon, allow- 

 ing the carbon to be retained or utilised in the form 

 of more or less complex carbohydrates, and though 



1 See especially the extensive ex- 

 planations in the ' Rapport sur les 

 progres de la Physiol. ge"n.' (1867, 

 p. 133 tqq. ) : '' Les phe'nomenes 

 physico-chimiques qui se passent 

 dans les corps vivants sont exacte- 

 ment les mdtnes, quant a leur nature, 

 quant aux lois qui les re*gissent et 

 quant a leurs produits, que ceux 

 qui se passent dans les corps bruts; 

 ce qui differe, ce sont seulement les 



VOL. II. 



proce"des et les appareils a 1'aide des- 

 quels ils sont manifestos. ... II 

 est de*ja prouve' qu'un grand nombre 

 de phe'nomenes qui s'accomplissent 

 dans les corps vivants peuvent etre 

 reproduits artificiellement, en de- 

 hors de 1'organisme, dans le monde 

 mineral. Mais ce que 1'on ne peut 

 pas reproduire, ce sont les proceeds 

 et les ou tils sp^ciaux de 1'organisme 

 vivant" (p. 222). 



2 E 



