NEWEST IDEAS AS TO WHAT IS LIFE 



food products into that highly complex proto- 

 plasm which Huxley named so well the physical 

 basis of life. 



Is the reader a little staggered at the multi- 

 farious activity of the ferments? let him com- 

 press his vision so that he may take note of what 

 goes on in the space of the hundred-thousandth 

 part of a needle's point. That is the size of the 

 cells of the liver there are millions and millions of 

 them, absolutely identical, alike in form and func- 

 tion. In the invisible compartments of these micro- 

 scopically minute workshops at least ten or twelve 

 distinct ferments have been found, manufacturing 

 various kinds of sugar and acids and urea and 

 bile and color-stuffs ; they take up various poisons 

 and render them harmless, bind up the acids with 

 diverse substances to form others more complex, 

 and in the meanwhile must see that they them- 

 selves get a proper supply of food and water and 

 oxygen, and that all these are churned up in a 

 state proper to assimilation. 



What is true of the liver seems equally true of 

 all the other glands and organs of the body the 

 kidneys, the spleen, the pancreas and for each of 

 them there may be a dozen or more distinct fer- 

 ments, each with a special and appointed work 

 to do. Even the brain and the nervous system 

 have their specific ferments, and these are certainly 



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