THE LIVING WAVE 



order of intellect if you can reproduce in the labora- 

 tory his "internal and external vital conditions." 

 (The italics are mine.) To produce those vital con- 

 ditions is where the rub comes. Those vital condi- 

 tions, as regards the minutest bit of protoplasm, sci- 

 ence, with all her tremendous resources, has not yet 

 been able to produce. The raising of Lazarus from 

 the dead seems no more a miracle than evoking vital 

 conditions in dead matter. External and internal 

 vital conditions are no doubt inseparably correlated, 

 and when we can produce them we shall have life. 

 Life, says Verworn, is like fire, and "is a phenome- 

 non of nature which appears as soon as the complex 

 of its conditions is fulfilled." We can easily produce 

 fire by mechanical and chemical means, but not 

 life. Fire is a chemical process, it is rapid oxidation, 

 and oxidation is a disintegrating process, while life 

 is an integrating process, or a balance maintained 

 between the two by what we call the vital force. 

 Life is evidently a much higher form of molecular 

 activity than combustion. The old Greek Hera- 

 clitus saw, and the modern scientist sees, very su- 

 perficially in comparing the two. 



I have no doubt that Huxley was right in his in- 

 ference "that if the properties of matter result from 

 the nature and disposition of its component mole- 

 cules, then there is no intelligible ground for refusing 

 to say that the properties of protoplasm result from 

 the nature and disposition of its molecules." It is 



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