28 LIFE "ONLY" A TRANSFORMER 



sicists and chemists, I believe, regard living things as a 

 result of the action of ordinary energy upon inorganic 

 matter. The sun "forms " the heart, is a formula which 

 expresses this clearly and definitely. But notice Dr. Odling's 

 phrase, " only a transformer /" and observe the force of the 

 word "only" In a living cell there is only a something 

 which transforms external force and rearranges the elements 

 of matter. In fever there is only a little peculiar matter 

 deranging the normal chemical changes of the body. In cattle 

 plague, and in contagious fevers generally, there is only a little 

 albuminous matter which causes fermentation of the blood, 

 and so on. All this I daresay appears very clear and 

 simple to the profound chemist, but neither the physician 

 nor the physiologist can regard such a statement as having 

 the slightest approach towards a solution of the question. 

 In a laboratory there is "only" a chemist who performs 

 operations more or less ( \ ) like those in the living cell, and 

 the only ( ! ) difference between the laboratory and the cell 

 is that the invisible and undemonstrable transformer in 

 the latter or rather in the transparent structureless bioplasm 

 of the " cell " not only effects, without any apparatus or 

 machinery whatever, and at a lower temperature, and in a 

 marvellously small space, and with astonishing speed, much 

 that the skilled chemist cannot achieve with all sorts of 

 complex apparatus, space millions of times as great, and time 

 millions of times as long at his disposal, but communicates 

 its wonderful powers to new matter into the bargain ! 



If the chemist admits that living matter possesses a 

 something which dead matter does not possess, and that 

 this something transforms force and rearranges the elements 

 of matter, he admits the existence of a power or capacity 



