ON THE NATURE OF LIFE. 181 



power of growth aiid self-renewal from heterogeneous 

 matter ; that the process of catalysis does not really 

 resemble vital action at all, inasmuch as, in it, definite 

 forces tending to double decomposition are always pre- 

 sent, and besides the catalytic agent never renews 

 itself; that although chemical fermentations may make 

 two and even three different products [e.g., amygdalin 

 with emulsin and water forms bitter almond oil, 

 prussic acid and glucose] without consumption of 

 the ferment, and some of these of higher molecular 

 complexity ; yet these ferments do not grow like the 

 organic ferments such as yeast and the putrefactive in- 

 fusoria, and to argue from one to the other is simply 

 to beg the question by the poor verbal fallacy of call- 

 ing two different things by the same name. 



Finally, the extraordinary difference in the tempera- 

 ture and whole process of formation of organic com- 

 pounds in the living organism, and in the laboratory, 

 give the strongest proof that some totally different 

 agency is at work instead of showing any analogy. 

 In addition to these the individual proximate prin- 

 ciples of organic bodies * are shown to be destitute of 

 the properties of living matter. The conclusion is that 

 it is impossible to uphold the material theory of life 

 unless we admit a profound and ineradicable distinction 

 between the merely chemical and physical functions 

 performed by living beings and those which are vital, 

 and that the latter must reside in a substance, although 

 chemical, no doubt, in a wide sense still so absolutely 

 different from matter in its ordinary state that it should 

 be put into a category by itself. Not to multiply 



* Op. cit., 68 to 75. 



