ON THE VITALI8T1C VIEW UF NATLKE. 433 



definition which has been put forth in vari(ni.s ways 

 ever since Lavoisier's time, when he and Laplace tried 

 to explain the existence of animal heat in this manner. 

 The progress of science in the course of the century 

 wliich followed Lavoisier has more and more confirmed 

 the importance of the role which oxygen plays, Init lias 

 also shown how very complex are the products of 

 oxygenation in tlie living organism, — how the living 

 processes are indeed chemical processes, but are quite 

 different from those of the chemical laboratory. As 

 Claude Bernard says, " The chemistry of the laljoratory 

 is carried on liy means of reagents and apparatus 

 which the chemist has prepared, and the cliemistry 

 of the li\ing being is carried on by means of reagents 

 and apparatus which the organism has prepared." ^ 

 One of the great performances of living matter is 

 the production, another is the storing up and distri- 

 bution, of oxygen. But though we know that the 

 chlorophyll - containing cells of green plants, under 

 the intiuence of sunlight, are able to decompose that 

 very inert body, carbonic acid, breathed out by both 

 animals and plants, into free oxygen and carljon, allow- 

 ing the carbon to be retained or utilised in the form 

 of more or less complex carbohydrates, and though 



' See especially the extensive ex- 

 planations in the ' Itapport sur les 

 progros de la Physiul. gen.' (1867, 

 p. 133 »qq.): "Les phenomenes 

 physico-chiniiciues qui se passent 

 dans les corps vivants sent exacte- 

 ineut les monies, ([uant a leur nature, 

 i|uant aux lois qui les rogissent et 

 (|uant a leurs produits, (|ue ceux 

 (jui so passent dans les corps bruts ; 

 ce qui diffijre, ce sunt seulenient les | vivant" (p. 2'22) 



VOL. II. 1> E 



procddes et les ajipareils h, I'aide des- 

 (juels ils sont manifestos. ... II 

 est doja jjrouve qu'un gi-and nombre 

 de phenomenes qui s'accomplissent 

 dans les corps vivants peuvent etre 

 reproduits artificiellement, en de- 

 hors de I'organisme, dans le monde 

 mineral. Mais ee que Ton ne j)eut 

 jias rej)roduire, ce sont les procodds 

 et les outils spociaux de I'organisme 



