OiY THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 107 



the faith that, by the advance of molecular physics, we shall 

 by and by be able to see our way as clearly from the constitu- 

 ents of water to the properties of water, as we are now able 

 to deduce the operations of a watch from the form of its 

 parts and the manner in which they are put together. 



Is the case in any way changed when carbonic acid, water, 

 and nitrogenous salts disappear, and in their place, under 

 the influence of pre-existing living protoplasm, an equivalent 

 weight of the matter of life makes its appearance ? 



It is true that there is no sort of parity between the prop- 

 erties of the components and the properties of the resultant, 

 but neither was there in the case of the water. It is also true 

 that what I have spoken of as the influence of pre-existing 

 living matter is something quite unintelligible; but does 

 anybody quite comprehend the modus operandi of an 

 electric spark, which traverses a mixture of oxygen and 

 hydrogen ? 



What justification is there, then, for the assumption of the 

 existence in the living matter of a something which has no 

 representative, or correlative, in the not living matter which 

 gave rise to it? What better philosophical status has ''vi- 

 tality" than "aquosity"? And why should "vitality" hope 

 for a better fate than the other "itys" which have disap- 

 peared since Martinus Scriblerus accounted for the operation 

 of the meat-jack by its inherent "meat-roasting quality," 

 and scorned the "materialism" of those who explained the 

 turning of the spit by a certain mechanism worked by the 

 draught of the chimney. 



If scientific language is to possess a definite and constant 

 signification whenever it is employed, it seems to me that 

 we are logically bound to apply to the protoplasm, or physi- 

 cal basis of life, the same conceptions as those which are 

 held to be legitimate elsewhere. If the phenomena exhib- 



