80 



[Jan. 2, 



Dr. J. Cheston Morris called the attention of the Society 

 again to the subject of Vital Molecular Vibrations : 



Force is not motion, as Dr. McLaughlin puts it, but that which causes 

 motion or change in matter. While its true nature is unknown, the phe- 

 nomena of the various physical forces correspond so completely with un- 

 dulations or vibrations that they are recognized as such, the results of 

 impulses brought to bear upon matter capable of atomic vibration ; and 

 the tendency of modern thought is more and more towards considering 

 light, heat, electricity, chemical affinity and mechanic force as all of them 

 essentially only modifications of one and the same force. But when we 

 come to consider the phenomena of life, while we find that living bodies 

 are all composed of material atoms similar to those of the inorganic world, 

 another force or impulse seems to be at work suspending or reversing the 

 ordinary action of the physical forces. It is characterized by acting, as 

 they do, only under special conditions, viz., the presence of plasma or or- 

 ganizable matter, heat, oxygen, light, and a germ, itself the product of 

 previous life. Withdraw any of these the ordinary phenomena of inor- 

 ganic matter present themselves. But whenever they are present, an 

 organized form results which tends to follow the type of its parent forms. 

 Fresh particles of matter are taken up and others are discharged ; in other 

 words, we have the phenomena of growth, development, secretion, excre- 

 tion and of reproduction ; all the physical laws and properties of matter 

 are retained and followed, but they are subordinated to or coordinated with 

 those of another force, which we call vital, organic or germ force, with 

 its own laws as distinctly defined as those of chemistry or heat. It is just 

 as unreasonable to deny the existence of the former as of the latter. 



Hitherto the vibratory theory has only been applied to explaining physi- 

 cal phenomena. It remained for Dr. McLaughlin to extend its applica- 

 tion to vital phenomena, by showing how completely it explains the 

 phenomena of immunity from, and prevention of, infectious and con- 

 tagious diseases by the law of interference. I wish to call your attention 

 to a similar explanation of the phenomena of germ force and heredity by 

 the law of transference. If two weights are suspended at proper dis- 

 tances from a cord fastened transversely between two pillars, and a third 

 weight is similarly suspended between them, and motions imparted per- 

 pendicularly to each other to the two outer weights, these motions will be 

 so transferred to the third weight as to cause it to describe a series of 

 curves resulting from the impulses transmitted ; or if a powder be dusted 

 over a square tin plate, and the edge of the latter be touched at certain 

 nodal points, the powder will arrange itself in certain lines and geometric 

 figures. Is not this precisely what happens when the germ-cell and sperm- 

 cell, the molecules of each vibrating in accordance with the impulses im- 

 pressed upon it, unite in the production of the new germ, which in turn 

 vibrates in accordance with these impulses, and proceeds accordingly to 

 arrange and develop fresh molecules, forms and figures similar to its 



