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ISfATUR^ 



[January 10; i^oi 



their functional activities, we are led to inquire in what way the 

 localisation of these in the higher and compound forms may 

 have come about. "Differentiation of labour" is the popular 

 explanation, and one is prone to ask whether the structural or 

 the functional differentiation was first achieved. It has generally 

 been taught in the past that the structural preceded the functional, 

 •but we are now coming to doubt this long-cherished conclusion, 

 "in evidence of the fact that nature will, with equal facility, effect 

 corresponding differentiation for the fulfilment of the same end, 

 in either the whole body of a unicellular organism or a localised 

 part of a multicellular one — in either a single cell or a cell- 

 aggregate — as, for example, in the formation of what are known 

 as the ciliated membranellse of the Infusor Stentor, and the so- 

 called corner-cells of the Mollusc Cyclas. Differentiation de- 

 pends, not on the interaction of cells, but upon the elementary 

 structure and potentialities of protoplasm, or, as Prof. C. O. 

 Whitman, of Chicago, has expressed it, "organism precedes 

 cell-formation." 



If this be so, there is raised the question how far the idea, 

 developed during the past two decades, that the animate being 

 is a mere blind automaton, and its actions but complicated 

 functions of a chemico- physical order such as we deduce from 

 the study of the inanimate, is correct, and we are prone to inquire 

 if the structural units of the animal body are, so to speak, bricks 

 set to a mathematical relationship, controlled by laws of pres- 

 sure, or living units, capable of working to their own ends, and 

 defying mechanical conditions such as apply to the inanimate. 



It has long been said of us devotees to the observational 

 branches of science that our methods are inaccurate by lack of 

 qualitative treatment, and the distinction has been drawn between 

 ours, the so-called "inexact," and the mathematical or " exact " 

 sciences. On this basis there are now being pushed forward 

 attempts to apply statistical, experimental and mathematical 

 tests to the study of vital phenomena. All honour to those who 

 are making them, for it is certain there are phases of life capable 

 of mathematical treatment, but the mystery of life can never be 

 thus solved ; and, concerning the objection to the observational 

 method, I would remark that if by that we are to understana 

 observation, with confirmation and generalisation, and rejection 

 of the non-confirmable, our non-mathematical procedure is 

 . scientific. Huxley has long ago said of mathematics that what 

 ydu get out of the machine depends entirely upon what you put 

 into it. 



Ten years ago, any one asked to define the nature of the 

 primitive organism from which all organic beings are descended, 

 having regard to then known chemical phenomena of life, would 

 most certainly have argued in favour of a green-plant, or of some 

 organism capable of decomposing CO2 under the action of sun- 

 light, and of raising inorganic substances to an organic level, 

 thereby rendering them fit for animal food. We now know of 

 the existence of lowly organisms capable of decomposing CO2 

 in the absence of chlorophyll. The ploughing in of the roots of 

 certain leguminous plants, in which our German cousins have 

 been for years ahead of us, is now well known to be associated 

 with the presence of fungi, capable of assimilating the nitrogen 

 of the soil. In the nitrifying bacteria, we are now familiar with 

 organisms by whose aid ammonia becomes the origin of nitrates 

 and nitrites, and there are others which, by a process of denitri- 

 fication, effect the reduction of these, with liberation of free 

 nitrogen. And startling indeed is the knowledge that there exist 

 in certain seas, and, it may be, near our very doors, bacteria 

 which possess the marvellous power of decomposing sulphates, 

 and of living in an atmosphere of sulphuretted hydrogen. The 

 discovery that certain lowly fungi are so sensitive to chemical 

 change in their nutritive media, that the presence of one part in 

 50,000 of zinc chloride will act as a powerful stimulus, and pro- 

 duce a growth some 700 times its own initial weight, and that 

 one part in 1,600,000 of silver nitrate is abruptly fatal to it, is 

 simply astounding. 



Turning to the animal, we find that whereas in the case of the 

 hot-blooded rabbit the weight of oxygen per hour sufficient for 

 the maintenance of life is as 2 •284, in the case of the cold- 

 blooded American turtle it falls to o-o88. With the animal, as 

 with the plant, so sensitive are the parts of the body to variation 

 in chemical composition of fluids with which they may be 

 brought into contact, that, under conditions of experiment, it has 

 been found that the heart of a frog, of which the beat has been 

 lessened or arrested by treatment with salt-solution or distilled 

 water, may be revived by the accession of one part in 10,000 of 

 calcium carbonate. 



NO. 1628, VOL. 63] 



What all this means, regarding the processes involved in the 

 mystery of life, and in what direction it is leading us, the future 

 can alone sufficiently show. One thing is certain, that since 

 living matter in allits forms is constantly undergoing waste and 

 disintegration by oxidation, life is possible only under a penalty 

 of death, and we are prone to inquire if this is a mere chance 

 circumstance or a necessity to some beneficent end. We know 

 that in the order of evolution the simpler forms of plants and 

 animals have, by combination and advancement, given rise to the 

 more complex, and it is clear that if this process were to go on 

 indefinitely, a time might come at which all the simpler forms 

 would be used up, and life would cease. The breaking up of the 

 complex forms and the dissociation of their elements, however, 

 results in the return to mother earth of the raw material of 

 which they are composed, and thereby renders possible the 

 repetition of the cycle, and from this it follows that the destruc- 

 tion of the individual may have been really a necessity, in order 

 that others might live. 



In this consideration we are once more brought into touch 

 with inorganic nature, and it is a remarkable fact that the very 

 chemical elements which enter into the composition of the 

 simplest protoplasmic structures are precisely those contributing 

 to the formation of the simplest of chemical substances, so far, 

 at any rate, as hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sodium, calcium, 

 magnesium and iron are concerned. My friend and colleague. 

 Sir Norman Lockyer, has recently emphasised this consideration, 

 and, with a boldness worthy his great reputation, has dared to 

 discuss the significance of the facts. The spectroscopic analysis 

 of the hotter stars has revealed to him the truth that their 

 simple chemical constitution is explained by the fact that the 

 final products of dissociation by heat are the earliest chemical 

 forms. From this he deduces the conclusion that with the 

 heavenly bodies, as with the organic world, the simplest forms 

 appeared first, and that the dissociation stages of the former, 

 as of the latter, reveal to us the forms the coming] together of 

 which has produced the thing dissociated or broken up. Passing 

 from the hottest to the cooler stars, he argues that, like the 

 various geologic strata, these bring before us a progression of 

 new forms of increasing complexity in an organised sequence, 

 and, developing this pregnant line of thought, he reverts to the 

 uniform simplicity in chemical constitution of the earliest 

 inorganic and the primitive organic forms, and deduces the belief 

 that " the first organic life was an interaction, somehow or other, 

 between the undoubted earliest chemical forms." It is a far cry 

 from the primitive monad to the hottest star, but so convinced 

 is Sir Norman Lockyer of the analogy between the methods of 

 organic and inorganic evolution, that he has used the latter term 

 as the title of his book, which I can strongly recommend to your 

 earnest consideration. We advance by facts, we live by ideas, 

 and if Sir Norman Lockyer's fascinating theory does no more 

 than set the trained mind to work and arouse interest in the 

 topics with which it deals, it will have served its purpose. 



To turn now to the physical properties of living matter. 

 Concerning the eye, it may be said that in the contraction of its 

 retinal pigment by a vital act in definite response to the rays of 

 the spectrum, and in the falling to a focus, within the substance 

 of the crystaUine lens, of the inverted image formed by that, it is 

 neither constructed nor behaving in the manner of the inanimate 

 photographer's camera, with which it has been ad nauseam 

 compared ! Again, the discovery in recent years that whereas, 

 during life, the gaseous diffusion of respiration does not take 

 place in strict conformity with the laws applying to inanimate 

 membranes, it does so after death, with that of the changes and 

 processes undergone by the food in its passage through the 

 intestinal wall, now proved to be of no mere mechanical 

 order, testify to the conclusion that the moment you bring 

 the conditions and arguments deduced from the study of the 

 inanimate to bear upon what may be expressively termed the 

 animate organic membrane, they either do not ap ply or are set 

 at defiance. 



Many other examples might be cited. We are getting back 

 to a conception of a " vital force," not of the order of the 

 ancients — a "Psyche" — a mysterious controlling influence 

 beyond our ken, but one which we may term a Neo- Vitalism, 

 which teaches us that although organic matter is in its manifes- 

 tations chemical and physical and the basis of life is associated 

 with chemical and physical processes, the physics and chemistry 

 are not those of the inanimate as at present understood, and 

 gives us hope of its discovery if we will but persevere. 



Finally, as to the charge of inexactitude. It is one of the 



