IMMUNITY. 397 



under which come the phenomena of natural 

 immunity and predisposition to disease. The 

 possibility of recognizing such a high conform- 

 ity to law in these broad processes seems to me 

 to impart a truer perception of these things than 

 the totally blind and mystical idea of " speci- 

 fic " activity, a conception which is no longer 

 consistent with belief in organic continuity. 

 I once compared such boundaries in nature to 

 the jurist's treatment of his paragraphs, as 

 projections of the beams in our eyes which we 

 all carry on account of the limits of our sub- 

 jective knowledge. Every line which we are 

 able to obliterate affords us truer insight. On 

 the other hand I must oppose that affected 

 simplicit}^ which is not the mark of truth, 

 however it simulates it, and which is able to 

 see in bacteria alone the cause, the prevention 

 and the cure of infectious disease. It is not a 

 question of a simple equation with one un- 

 known quantity, but more correctly of a greatly 

 involved equation with three variable quanti- 

 ties. 



