ON THE VITALISTIC VIEW OF NATURE. 437 



for which no teleological mechanism has been invented, 

 still more are we baffled by the apparent " autonomy 

 of the living cell," in consequence of which it is, e.g., 

 "able to select its food, retaining what is useful and 

 rejecting what is harmful." 1 And what shall we say 

 of the so-called " wandering cells, which are actually 

 sent out by the organism in order to absorb in the 

 alimentary canal food-stuffs, notably fat, returning with 

 it into the blood, or to receive into thelnselves malig- 

 nant bacteria, making them innocuous by a process of 

 digestion ? " 2 No mechanical physico-chemical explana- 

 tion of this process is imaginable, and the word 

 " selection," with which Darwin charmed away so many 

 mysteries, has revealed new ones in their place. 3 



1 See the very interesting and 

 frequently quoted address by Prof. 

 G. K. Rindfleisch (Wiirzburg, 1888), 

 entitled ' Arztliche Philosophic,' 

 p. 13. 



2 Rindfleisch, loc. cit., p. 15. 



3 Inthiscounectionitisiuteresting 

 to refer to a discussion which was 

 raised by the suggestive address of 

 Prof. F. R. Japp, entitled, " Stereo- 

 chemistry and Vitalism" ('Brit. 

 Assoc. Report,' 1898, p. 813). It 

 refers to the discovery by Pasteur 

 of "chirality" in solutions of 

 certain crystallised organic salts, 

 on which I reported in vol. i. 

 p. 450. "Pasteur regarded the 

 formation of asymmetric organic 

 compounds as the special pre- 

 rogative of the living organism. 

 Most of the substances of which 

 the animal and vegetable tissues 

 are built up the proteids, cell- 

 ulose are asymmetric organic 

 compounds." Now, in his ex- 

 periments on fermentation Pasteur 

 found that " the asymmetric living 

 organism selected for its nutri- 



ment that particular asymmetric 

 form " out of a mixture of two 

 enantiomorphous compounds held 

 in solution "which suited its 

 needs and left the opposite form 

 either wholly or, for the most 

 part, untouched" (p. 817). Prof. 

 Japp proceeds to consider the 

 opinion then formed by Pasteur, 

 " that compounds exhibiting optical 

 activity have never been obtained 

 without the intervention of life " 

 (p. 818). This view, to which 

 Pasteur adhered, and which he 

 defended against eminent op- 

 ponents, has been frequently 

 challenged, and seemed definitely 

 set aside by the explanation of 

 Prof. Einil Fischer of Berlin, and 

 by Jungfleisch's sjrnthesis of race- 

 inic acid and its resolution into 

 dextro- and laevo - tartaric acids. 

 . . . "Consequently, the overwhelm- 

 ing marjority of chemists hold that 

 the foregoing synthesis and separ- 

 ation of optically active compounds 

 have been effected without the 

 intervention of life, either directly 



