ON THE VITALISTIC VIEW OF NATURE. 437 



for which no teleological mechanism has been invented, 

 still more are we baffled by the apparent " autonomy 

 of the living cell," in consequence of which it is, e.g., 

 " able to select its food, retaining what is useful and 

 rejecting what is harmful." l And what shall we say 

 of the so-called " wandering cells, which are actually 

 sent out by the organism in order to absorb in the 

 alimentary canal food-stuffs, notably fat, returning with 

 it into the blood, or to receive into themselves malig- 

 nant bacteria, making them innocuous by a process of 

 digestion ? " No mechanical physico-chemical explana- 

 tion of this process is imaginable, and the word 

 " selection," with which Darwin charmed away so many 

 mysteries, has revealed new ones in their place. 3 



1 See the very interesting and 

 frequently quoted address by Prof. 

 G. E. Rindfleisch (Wiirzburg, 1888), 

 entitled ' Arztliche Philosophic,' 

 p. 13. 



2 Rindfleisch, loc. cit., p. 15. 



3 In this connection it is interesting 

 to refer to a discussion which was 

 raised by the suggestive address of 

 Prof. F. R. Japp, entitled, "Stereo- 

 chemistry and Vitalism" ('Brit. 

 Assoc. Report,' 1898, p. 813). It 

 refers to the discovery by Pasteur 

 of " chirality " in solutions of 

 certain crystallised organic salts, 

 on which I reported in vol. i. 

 p. 450. ' ' Pasteur regarded the 

 formation of asymmetric organic 

 compounds as the special pre- 

 rogative of the living organism. 

 Most of the substances of which 

 the animal and vegetable tissues 

 are built up the proteids, cell- 

 ulose are asymmetric organic 

 compounds." Now, in his ex- 

 periments on fermentation Pasteur 

 found that " the asymmetric living 

 organism selected for its nutri- 



ment that particular asymmetric 

 form " out of a mixture of two 

 eiiantiomorphous compounds held 

 in solution " which suited its 

 needs and left the opposite form 

 either wholly or, for the most 

 part, untouched" (p. 817). Prof. 

 Japp proceeds to consider the 

 opinion then formed by Pasteur, 

 " that compounds exhibiting optical 

 activity have never been obtained 

 without the intervention of life " 

 (p. 818). This view, to which 

 Pasteur adhered, and which he 

 defended against eminent op- 

 ponents, has been frequently 

 challenged, and seemed definitely 

 set aside by the explanation of 

 Prof. Emil Fischer of Berlin, and 

 by Jungfleisch's synthesis of race- 

 mic acid and its resolution into 

 dextro- and laevo - tartaric acids. 

 . . . "Consequently, the overwhelm- 

 ing majority of chemists hold that 

 the foregoing synthesis and separ- 

 ation of optically active compounds 

 have been effected without the 

 intervention of life, either directly 



