248- THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



< vitalists.' They all agree that pre-existing c vital 

 force' of some kind pre-existing Life, therefore 

 is necessary, and that without the agency of this no 

 living thing can come into being. M. Pouchet did 

 not believe in what we term c Archebiosis,' and he 

 quite legitimately called himself a heterogenist ; be- 

 cause the molecules of the infused animal or vegetable 

 substances (with which alone he experimented) were 

 supposed by him to be possessed by some special c vital 

 force,' or c force plastique, 1 under whose directive agency 

 the new collocations arose 1 . He says 2 : C I have always 

 thought that organized beings were animated by forces 

 which are in no way reducible to physical and chemical 

 forces. 3 And accordingly M. Pouchet has never at- 

 tempted to show that living things might come into 



1 In this point of view he is indeed supported by the doctrines announced 

 quite recently by a celebrated French chemist, concerning ' corps hemi- 

 organis^s.' M. Fremy says (' Compt. Rend.' t. Ixvii. p. 1 165) : ' Ces corps 

 sont les albumines, la fibrine, la caseine, les substances vit^llines, &c. La 

 synthese chimique ne les reproduit pas. II est impossible selon moi de les 

 consider comme des principes imm&liats d<5finis : je les designe, sous le 

 nom gdn^ral de corps bemiorganises, parce qu'ils tiennent le milieu entre 



le principe immddiat et le tissu organist Us ne sont pas encore 



organise' mais cependant ils sont douds d'une veritable force vitale, car 

 sous 1'influence de 1'air humide ils entrent en decomposition comme des 

 corps vivants et re'ellement organises.' He says also: ' en raison de 

 la force vitale qu'ils possedent, ils e*prouvent alors des decompositions 

 successives, donnent naissance a des de*rivs nouveaux, et engendrent des 

 ferments dont la production n'est pas due a une generation spontanee, 

 mais k une force vital prexistante dans les corps he*miorganiss et qui 

 s'est simplement continuee en se manifestant par les transformations 

 organiques les plus varides.' 



2 ' Heterogenie,' 1859, p. 428. 



