GERMS AND THEIR "PHYSICAL RELATIONS." I 3 



Nature's laboratory. Here her chemist, " life" 

 is at work, and his work is perfect. 



But let us consider the matter from another 

 stand-point. Here are two minute masses of 

 perfectly structureless, colourless, living matter. 

 No difference between them can be demon- 

 strated by physics or chemistry. They have 

 no structure. They are soft and diffluent. One 

 placed under certain conditions will become a 

 dog, the other a man ; but from the dog-germ 

 you cannot by any alteration of conditions ob- 

 tain a man, any more than from the man-germ 

 anything but a man, or parts of a man, can be 

 evolved. Now what is the difference between 

 the man-livine-matter and the dogf-livingf-mat- 

 ter which could not be distinguished by physical 

 or chemical investigation ? I would answer a 

 transcendent difference, — but in power. Dr. 

 Gull would say these germs " became through 

 a definite set of physical (!) relations like the 

 parents from which they sprang." He remarks, 

 that whether the grerms are as " limited and 

 specific as we have hitherto regarded them is 

 the questio vexata of the day." But, as will 

 be observed, the whole question is begged in 

 the words " physical relations." The relations 



