LIFE OF ELIE METCHNIKOFF 223 



This book was entitled Forty Years' Search for a 

 Rational Conception of Life, and the articles record 

 the evolution of his ideas and his search " not only 

 for a rational understanding of life, but also for the 

 solution of the problem of death, which is so full of 

 contradictions." 



This collection of articles enables us at the same 

 time to follow the gradual transition from the pessim- 

 ism of his youth to the optimism of his maturity. 

 His first writings 1 relate to the discords of human 

 nature and the lack of a solid basis for morals. 



But, already in 1883, he concluded an opening 

 Causerie at the Naturalists' Congress in Odessa, by 

 the following words : " The theoretical study of 

 natural history problems, in the widest sense of the 

 word, alone can give a sound method for the com- 

 prehension of truth and lead to a definite conception 

 of life or at least to an approach to it." 



Another article, The Curative Forces of the Organ- 

 ism, sums up his phagocyte theory, and states the 

 fact that the organism possesses special powers of 

 struggle against enemy elements. 



In 1891 , he wrote The Law of Life, in which we find 

 the dawning idea that the lack of harmony in human 

 structure does not make a happy existence and a 

 rational code of morals impossible. Morals must 

 consist " not in rules of conduct adapted to our 

 present defective human nature, but on conduct 

 based upon human nature modified, according to 

 the ideal of human happiness." 



The Flora of the Human Body, published in 1901, 



1 Education from an Anthropological Point of View, The Matrimonial 

 Age, The Conception of Human Nature, The Struggle for Existence in a 

 General Sense. See Bibliography. 



