NEWEST IDEAS AS TO WHAT IS LIFE 



otherwise diseased tissue, lack of sunlight and air 

 these are the producers of the physically, men- 

 tally, and morally maimed. With narcotics and 

 poisons we may stop development, whether it be 

 that of a plant or a child. 



But what may be arrested may perchance be in- 

 fluenced in other ways. We have seen how the 

 whole drift of present-day physiology is to reduce 

 life to the connected and concerted play of the 

 ferments. The identity of the two processes holds 

 in most unexpected ways. Heat and cold, chloro- 

 form, the poisons, the toxins secreted by the viru- 

 lent microbes even, act upon the test-tube fermen- 

 tations of the laboratory in precisely the same way 

 as upon the living organism. Even the curious 

 ferment-like solutions of fine platinum and gold 

 may be "poisoned," "chloroformed," or "killed," 

 as if they were alive. What is dis-ease, mal-action, 

 and death for the one is the same for the other. 



It seems to be clear, too, that the condition of 

 growth, whether of a grain of wheat or the germ of 

 a man, is the production, or appearance, of distinct 

 enzymes ferments at each stage. Cessation of 

 growth must mean the disappearance or lapse in 

 activity of these special en(zymes. What we call 

 growing old seems merely a series of destructive fer- 

 mentations. It is probable that these are present 

 from the beginning that throughout all life there is 



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