NEW CONCEPTIONS IN SCIENCE 



stituting a condition of suspended action, the 

 matter seems clear. 



This reads like a very simple experiment; most 

 great experiments are. It would be idle to sup- 

 pose from this that the secret of long life has been 

 found. But one would be more preoccupied still 

 who disregarded the significance of this new line 

 of investigation. 



There remained one wide area of the life proc- 

 esses which Dr. Loeb had but bordered the ac- 

 tion of the nerves, the physical processes by which 

 we feel and know, the avenues through which come 

 the awe of Niagara, the tragedy of a Duse, the won- 

 der of a rose. 



Dr. Loeb's earlier work had tended, indeed, to 

 show that the mysterious and elaborate structure 

 which present-time physiology attributes to the 

 ganglions and the cells is quite useless, that all we 

 need ask for in a nerve are the most elementary 

 properties of protoplasm, that it will conduct, and 

 react to stimuli. It seems as if the nerve is the 

 least differentiated of all the tissues of the body, 

 has remained the nearest to the primitive plasm 

 with which life begins. It is not needful to add 

 that all this is directly the reverse of the generally 

 accepted idea which would naively endow "think- 

 ing matter" with a complexity befitting its high 



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