GERMS AND THEIR "PHYSICAL RELATIONS." 13 



Nature's laboratory. Here her chemist, " life"'' 

 is at work, and his work is perfect. 



But let us consider the matter from another 

 stand-point. Here are two minute masses of 

 perfectly structureless, colourless, living matter. 

 No difference between them can be demon- 

 strated by physics or chemistry. They have 

 no structure. They are soft and diffluent. One 

 placed under certain conditions will become a 

 dog, the other a man ; but from the dog-germ 

 you cannot by any alteration of conditions ob-- 

 tain a man, any more than from the man-germ 

 anything but a man, or parts of a man, can be 

 evolved. Now what is the difference between 

 the man-living-matter and the dog-living-mat- 

 ter which could not be distinguished by physical 

 or chemical investigation ? I would answer a 

 transcendent difference, but in power. Dr. 

 Gull would say these germs " became through 

 a definite set of physical (!) relations like the 

 parents from which they sprang." He remarks, 

 that whether the germs are as "limited and 

 specific as we have hitherto regarded them is 

 the questio vexata of the day." But, as will 

 be observed, the whole question is begged in 

 the words " physical relations." The relations 



