122 THE DATA OF BIOLOGY. 



of nitro-glycerine is a sufficient dose. Taking an average 

 man's weight as 150 pounds, it results that liis body is appre- 

 ciably affected in its state by the 115-millionth part of its 

 weight of this nitrogenous compound. 



In presence of such powers displayed by matter of simple 

 kinds we shall see how impossible it is even to imagine those 

 processes going on in organic matter out of which emerges 

 the dynamic element in Life. As no separate form of proteid 

 possesses vitality, we seem obliged to assume that the mole- 

 cule of protoplasm contains many molecules of proteids, pro- 

 bably in various isomeric states, all capable of ready change 

 and therefore producing great instability of the aggregate 

 they form. As before pointed out (§4), a proteid-molecule 

 includes more than 220 equivalents of several so-called ele- 

 ments. Each of these undecomposed substances is now recog- 

 nized by chemists as almost certainly consisting of several 

 kinds of components. Hence the implication is that a proteid- 

 molecule contains thousands of units, of which the different 

 classes have their respective rates of inconceivably rapid 

 oscillation, while each unit, receiving and emitting ethereal 

 undulations, affects others of its kind in its own and adja- 

 cent molecules : an immensely complex structure having im- 

 mensely complex activities. And this complexity, material 

 and dynamic, in the proteid-molecule we must regard as 

 raised to a far higher degree in the unit of protoplasm. Here 

 as elsewhere alternative impossibilities of thought present 

 themselves. We find it impossible to think of Life as im- 

 ported into the unit of protoplasm from without ; and yet we 

 find it impossible to conceive it as emerging from the coopera- 

 tion of the components. 



§ 36/. But now, having confessed that Life as a principle 

 of activity is unknown and unknowable — that while its phe- 

 nomena are accessible to thought the implied noumenon is 

 inaccessible — ^that only the manifestations come within the 

 range of our intelligence while that which is manifested lies 



