NEW CONCEPTIONS IN SCIENCE 



a younger colleague of Dr. Loeb, in the University of 

 Chicago, endeavored to lay bare the secret of the 

 nerves, the action of anaesthetics, to reach close to 

 the nature of the mind. 



All of these papers grew out of the work that has 

 occupied, more or less, the entire career of this 

 Chicago University professor, who, a year before, 

 had been brought so strikingly to the public notice. 

 Then Dr. Loeb showed that it was possible, in a 

 sense, to produce living things artificially. Chem- 

 ical agents might effect the fertilization of the eggs 

 of some lower orders, notably the little sea-urchins 

 which swarm on the shores of salt waters. These 

 discoveries seemed to topple over all the ancient 

 ideas of life. And that was their purpose. 



No doubt, before many another eager mind 

 dreams of thus controlling the life -processes have 

 floated. The idea must be older than the legends 

 of Faust or Prometheus. And the legends of Faust 

 and Prometheus are very old. But in the present 

 instance these conceptions had been reached by a 

 natural course. 



Dr. Loeb's earlier work had dealt with the theory 

 of the instincts. For example, a moth flies straight 

 for a flame. Sometimes of a morning about the 

 light -houses the birds lie scattered and dead, seem- 

 ingly drawn by the glare to strike against the heavy 

 panes. A flower standing in a room turns its petals 



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