THE BREATH OF LIFE 



between a state of integration and disintegration. 

 What is it that determines this new mode and end 

 of their activities? 



In all his biological experimentation, Professor 

 Loeb starts with living matter and, finding its proc- 

 esses capable of physico-chemical analysis, he has- 

 tens to the conclusion that its genesis is to be ac- 

 counted for by the action and interaction of these 

 principles alone. 



In the inorganic world, everything is in its place 

 through the operation of blind physical forces; be- 

 cause the place of a dead thing, its relation to the 

 whole, is a matter of indifference. The rocks, the 

 hills, the streams are in their place, but any other 

 place would do as well. But in the organic world we 

 strike another order — an order where the relation 

 and subordination of parts is everything, and to 

 speak of human existence as a "matter of chance" 

 in the sense, let us say, that the forms and positions 

 of inanimate bodies are matters of chance, is to con- 

 fuse terms. 



Organic evolution upon the earth shows steady 

 and regular progression; as much so as the growth 

 and development of a tree. If the evolutionary im- 

 pulse fails on one line, it picks itself up and tries on 

 another, it experiments endlessly like an inventor, 

 but always improves on its last attempts. Chance 

 would have kept things at a standstill; the principle 

 of chance, give it time enough, must end where it 



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