296 LIFE AND DEATH. 



Living elements or cells cannot subsist indefinitely 

 without increasing and multiplying. The time must 

 come when the cell divides, either directly or in- 

 directly; and then, instead of one cell, there are two. 

 This is the method of generation for the anatomical 

 element. In a complex individual it is a more or less 

 restricted part of the organism, usually a simple 

 sexual cell, that takes on the formation of the new 

 being, and assures the perpetuity of the protoplasm, 

 and therefore of the species. 



Property of Growth. Its Supposed Restriction to 

 Living Beings. At first it would appear that nothing 

 like this occurs in inanimate nature. The physical 

 machine, if we furnish it matter and energy, could go 

 on working indefinitely, without being compelled to 

 increase and reproduce. Here, then, there is an 

 entirely new condition peculiar to the organized 

 being, a property well' adapted, it would seem and 

 this time without any possible doubt for separating 

 living matter from brute matter. It is not so. 



It would not be impossible to imagine a system 

 of chemical bodies organized like the animal or 

 vegetable economy, so that a destruction would be 

 compensated for by a growth. The only thing im- 

 possible is to suppose, with M. le Dantec, a destruction 

 that would at the same time be an analysis. And an 

 additional perplexity occurs when he supposes that 

 in the successive acts exchanges of material may 

 occur. 



There is no necessity for making this impossible 

 chemistry a characteristic of the living being. The 

 chemistry of the living being is general chemistry. 

 Lavoisier and Berthelot enforced this view. We 

 should not lose sight of the teachings of the masters. 



