WHAT IS PHYSICAL LIFE 



reach for the gaping wound he would be 

 ejected instanter for spoiling the whole 

 performance with his defiling touch. 



Every item and detail in the foregoing 

 description simply illustrates how nothing 

 escapes being covered with these unicellu- 

 lar micro-organisms. 



But instead of associating bacteria, as 

 many do, with nothing but surgery or dis- 

 ease, we cannot but infer that such a pre- 

 ponderating realm of life as that of the 

 micro-organisms must have a correspond- 

 ing influence on the rest of the living king- 

 dom. And so indeed it has, because, were 

 it not for the bacteria alone, all visible 

 plants or animals would soon cease to ex- 

 ist. Thus no animal or plant spontane- 

 ously decomposes after it dies, any more 

 (than do stones or rocks. Every tree which 

 falls in a forest and the body of every 

 foeast dead in the field, would stay there 

 fcut for bacteria. So soon as any living 

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