WHAT IS LIFE 



CHAPTER I 



CHANGES IN SCIENTIFIC OPINION ALCHEMISTS AND 

 CHEMISTS VITALISTS, MECHANISTS AND NEOVIT- 

 ALISTS 



SCIENTIFIC opinion regarding any particular point 

 is apt to waver from view to view as new facts 

 swim into one's ken ; it swings from one side to 

 another like a pendulum and is sometimes found, 

 after a long interval of time, to have returned to 

 a position which it might have been supposed had 

 been abandoned for ever. That such must neces- 

 sarily be the case will not require much demonstra- 

 tion when one remembers the vast number of 

 undiscovered facts which lie all around us and the 

 potent and corroding effect which the discoveries 

 of to-morrow may consequently have upon the 

 most cherished theories of to-day. -- iK 



In the pre-scientific period, as some would call Alchemy 

 it, at any rate at a period when science was in an 

 even more crude and chaotic condition than it is 



to-day, the chemists, or, as they were then called, 



A' 



