ATTEMPTS to explain the nature of life; to define 

 the meaning of that term; to distinguish between 

 living and non-living matter; of all these we have no lack, 

 .and the work on The Origin and Nature of Life, by Felix le 

 Dantec (London: Hodder and Stoughton. 1907), adds 

 another to the series. We cannot say that the author 

 leaves us any nearer a settlement of the question than we 

 were before, but this at least can be said that he presents 

 us with a very closely reasoned and interesting exposition 

 of the subject from the standpoint of the confirmed and 

 resolute mechanician. He has no doubt whatsoever that 

 the effective synthesis which will produce living proto- 

 plasm in the laboratory will some day take place. When it 

 does, " it will have no surprises in it, and it will be utterly 

 useless. With the new knowledge acquired by science, the 

 enlightened mind no longer needs to see the fabrication of 

 protoplasm in order to be convinced of the absence of all 

 essential difference and all absolute discontinuity 'between 

 living and non-living matter " (p. 250). This reads rather 

 curiously from the same pen as a statement that a living 

 being is not a machine made to accomplish one kind of 

 work and that only, and that " circumstances so vary 

 around any given animal, and the animal itself changes so 

 quickly, that we may say without exaggeration, an animal 

 never does twice the same thing in the whole course of its 

 existence " (p. 67). If there is to be this constant change of 

 method, one would conclude that there must be some- 

 thing to preside over and direct the changes, and one 

 looks with interest to discover what that something is. It 

 appears that we are to seek it in changes in the environ- 

 ment, including in that term the chemical characters and 

 the changes of equilibrium in the colloids of the body it- 

 self. The author's argument, which is exceedingly "in- 

 genious, and as far as we are aware quite original, is very 

 largely based upon the results obtained by the new 

 science of serumtherapy, which we owe for the most part 

 to the genius and discoveries of Pasteur, in whose Institute, 

 if we are not mistaken, M. le Dantec has been a skilled and 

 notable worker. 



The author agrees with Lamarck that " the function 

 creates the organ " (p. 74) ; but he assigns a meaning to^the 

 term organ which is perhaps wider than certainly 

 different to the meaning which Lamarck would have 

 attached to it. " The definition of organ must be physio- 

 logical, and the only possible definition is the following: 



