CHAPTER IX 



LIVING THINGS AND MACHINES THEIR DIFFERENCES 

 SPENCER AND WEISMANN A "VERBAL EXPLANA- 

 TION " 



\ 



WE have now studied most of the fundamental j 

 activities of living bodies and have seen that they 

 include many features which are not discoverable / 

 in non-living substances. That there may be a 

 superficial similarity between some of the circum- 

 stances of the two kinds of matter may possibly be 

 conceded, but when carefully examined it seems 

 that the fundamental differences are far greater 

 than the surface resemblances. 



" The structure of a machine," says Strasburger l 

 a very distinguished German botanist, " might be Living thing 

 called its organisation; and the fact that, when andmach 

 provided with a store of energy, it can be started 

 by the opening of a valve to perform work con- 

 formable to its structure this property might be 

 called its sensibility. But the living substance is 

 entirely distinguished from the dead machine by 

 the ability to provide itself with the energy needful 



l Das Protoplasma und die Beizbarkeit, 1891, s. 24. 

 Ill 



