BROAD GENERAL FEATURES. 



forms of life," &c., there are, on the other hand, some great 

 truths which can " only be appreciated by comparing the 

 most highly specialised forms of life with one another, not 

 in their minute details, but in their broad general features !" 

 The new philosophy prides itself upon being broad. It is 

 the philosophy of the general, the philosophy of the huge. 



By statements about broad general features the mind of 

 the reader is cleverly led away from the consideration of 

 the real question. He is asked to consider what is taking 

 place in a fully formed plant or complex animal, but is 

 never told what occurs in this same plant or animal before 

 it reached its fully developed form, or what goes on in the 

 several parts into which every part can be divided and of 

 which it is in the natural state composed. We are told about 

 the great truths which apply to the plant or animal as a whole, 

 but find that these cease to be truths at all when applied to 

 the component parts of which the whole is made up. 



Now, if it were possible to divide the simple from the 

 specialised if the lower forms of life and the higher were 

 separated by any distinct line of demarcation if we could 

 really account for the changes taking place in any one part of 

 a living thing of the y^o f an i ncn m i ts extent, such a 

 course might be supported by mere argument, but the facts of 

 the case render the position assumed absolutely untenable. 



It will be shown in Part II. that there is not one portion 

 of a living growing tissue -g-^- of an inch in extent, in which 

 living matter cannot be demonstrated, and that in this living 

 matter changes occur which physics and chemistry do not 

 explain. In every change characteristic of living things 

 this living matter takes a part. Chemists and physicists 

 cannot imitate the changes because they cannot imitate 



