DECADENCE AND REVIVAL 29 



submaxillary salivary gland, when the outflow 

 is resisted by fluid in a manometer, may rise 

 much above the arterial pressure; and also 

 by the observation that after administration 

 of a drug, such as atropin, the blood supply 

 may be increased as much as before administra- 

 tion of the drug on stimulation of the secretory 

 nerve, without, however, calling forth any flow 

 of secretion."* These and other instances, 

 such as that of oxidisation, which might also be 

 cited, show that further knowledge has dis- 

 posed of the simpler mechanical explanation, 

 which at first seemed to be sufficient, in favour 

 of another and far more complicated solution 

 of the difficulty. 



These and other difficulties, which it will be 

 the business of this book to bring forward, have 

 led many men of science to abandon the 

 mechanical explanation of nature as inade- 

 quate, and have caused them to endeavour to 

 substitute for it a further theory of living 

 matter. Thus Dr Haldane t says : " In a Haldane 

 living organism there is a specific influence at 

 work, which so controls all the movements of 

 the body and of the material entering or leav- 



* B. Moore in Recent Advances in Physiology and Bio- 

 Chemistry, ed. L. Hill, Arnold, 1906. 



t Nineteenth Century, 1898, ii., p. 400. In this article 

 the writer may be looked upon as a " Herald of Revolt " 

 in this particular question in England. 



