XIV 



PROOFS OF ORGANISING MIND 293 



mination. As examples of recent results, haemoglobin, the 

 red colouring matter of the blood, was found by Preyer in 

 1866 to be as follows — 



^600^960'^154^ e i^3^'l79' 



showing a total of 1894 atoms, while Zinoffsky in 1855 

 found the same substance from horse's blood to be — 



C H N O Fe S 



^-'712 xa 1130 i>l 214 w 245 r c l°2> 



showing a total of 2304 atoms. Considering the very small 

 number of atoms in inorganic compounds, and in the simpler 

 vegetable and animal products, caffeine containing only 23 

 (C 7 H 7 (CH 3 )N 4 2 ), the complexity of the proteids will be 

 more appreciated. 



Professor Max Verworn, from whose great work on 

 General Physiology the preceding account is taken, is very 

 strong in his repudiation of the idea that there is such a 

 thing as a " vital force." He maintains that all the powers 

 of life reside in the cell, and therefore in the protoplasm of 

 which the cell consists. But he recognises a great difference 

 between the dead and the living cell, and admits that our 

 knowledge of the latter is extremely imperfect. He enu- 

 merates many differences between them, and declares that 

 " substances exist in living which are not to be found in dead 

 cell-substance." He also recognises the constant internal 

 motions of the living cell, the incessant waste and repair, 

 while still preserving the highly complex cell in its integrity 

 for indefinite periods ; its resistance during life to destructive 

 agencies, to which it is exposed the moment life ceases ; but 

 still there is no " vital force " — to postulate that would be 

 unscientific. 



Yet in his highly elaborate volume of 600 closely printed 

 pages, dealing with every aspect of cell-structure and physio- 

 logy in all kinds of organisms, he gives no clue whatever to 

 the existence of any directive and organising powers such as 

 are absolutely essential to preserve even the unicellular 

 organism alive, and which become more and more necessary 

 as we pass to the higher animals and plants, with their vast 

 complexity of organs, reproduced in every successive genera- 



