Continuity 79 



duces something incalculable and purpose- 

 ful amid the laws of physics; it thus 

 distinctly supplements those laws, though 

 it leaves them otherwise precisely as they 

 were and obeys them all. 



We see only its effect, we do not see 

 Life itself. Conversion of Inorganic into 

 Organic is effected always by living 

 organisms. The conversion under those 

 conditions certainly occurs, and the pro- 

 cess may be studied. Life appears nec- 

 essary to the conversion; which clearly 

 takes place under the guidance of life, 

 though in itself it is a physical and 

 chemical process. Many laboratory con- 

 versions take place under the guidance of 

 life, and, but for the experimenter, would 

 not have occurred. 



Again, putrefaction, and fermentation, 

 and purification of rivers, and disease, 

 are not purely and solely chemical pro- 

 cesses. Chemical processes they are, but 

 they are initiated and conducted by 

 living organisms. Just when medicine is 

 becoming biological, and when the hope 

 of making the tropical belt of the earth 



