c* 



CHEMICAL CHARACTERS OF CELL 91 



plorers in 1790. " On the arrival of the expe- 

 dition, the animals were perfectly tame and 

 fearless but advantage was taken of this to 

 hunt them down and secure their flesh as meat 

 for the European visitors, and by the jend of^ 

 the winter the_ animals were already difficult 

 to approach. The following winter, when 

 another exploring party arrived in these parts, 

 the walrus fled whenever it perceived a human 

 form in the distance ; it had grown to recognise 

 man as its enemy, and took refuge in instinc- 

 tive flight." 



Now one may fairly ask, what becomes of 

 the theory of tactisms in these cases ? Here 

 we have a sudden change of behaviour on the 

 part of the birds or the walruses towards the 

 men, an alteration of a kind wholly unknojwn 

 tq_cjiemistry and physics, one which can only 

 be explained on the ground that the birds were 

 possessed of a sense not belonging to non-living 

 matter. The only other explanation is that 

 the contact with man caused such an alteration 

 in the colloids of the sea-birds' bodies that a 

 different re-action took place after some time 

 of acquaintance to that which was first exhi- 

 bited and such an explanation only needs to 

 be formulated for its absurdity to be seen. 



We may fairly claim then that though many 

 phenomena exhibited by living things may be 



