508 BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS 



and perpetuated, or, in a word, evolved from forces and 

 materials devoid of life. In this process we, therefore, are 

 compelled to observe that vital chemistry knows little, 

 and utilises less, of the strict " letter of the law," in its 

 methods of dealing with the elements of matter by the 

 vital processes of dynamic charge and discharge, and that 

 it has short and effective means of dealing with the pro- 

 blems of nutrition and tissue metabolism, which nothing 

 but " vital law " can perform ; verily, although science, 

 chemical and physiological, has done much to unravel 

 the secrets of life, there comes a limit to its achieve- 

 ments when the proceedings of that great entity are to be 

 surveyed in its everyday work. The living current of 

 the blood, as it rushes through our field of vision, or is 

 subjected to the most crucial, but still non-vital, tests of 

 non-living science, is carrying with it its ten thousand 

 secrets, hidden beyond the microscope's reach, and re- 

 moved from the possibility of chemical investigation ; 

 consequently, the secret of life, we feel justified here in 

 claiming, is the most sacred in nature, the very " Lhasa " of 

 science, and the perennial justification of the best and 

 most aspiring efforts which the ingenuity of mankind can 

 put forth, or the intelligence of man carry out. 



It would not be too much to say that the chemistry 

 of the living blood contains the secret of " the unification 

 of the elements," the working out on vitally dynamic 

 lines of the charge and discharge of its organic molecular 

 energy, the positively charged molecules representing the 

 elements of living matter or organising material, and the 

 negatively charged molecules the elements of dying or 

 dead matter or disorganising material, each with their 

 mutual attractions and repulsions, and their intrinsic 

 powers of life and death. Thus it would seem that 

 nutrition and metabolism, or the processes of integration 

 and disintegration, can be carried out within the same 

 organism by the alternate charge and discharge of its 

 molecular magazines, and the continued existence therein 

 of mutual affinity and repulsion of negative and positive 

 energy within the substance of, and actually composing, 

 its molecules or atoms ; their dynamic condition, therefore, 

 becomes the key to the vital position or the secret of life, 



