2,62 Death and Dissolution of the Organism 



the body; namely, the urine, and that this poison also 

 causes the symptoms of weakness which characterize 

 the animal. He could prove the toxic character of their 

 urine on other animals. This combined with starvation 

 could sufficiently account for the short duration of 

 life. The facts of the case show that it is due to an 

 imperfection in the construction of the organism such 

 as one would expect to find more or less in each animal 

 if one discards the idea of purposefulness and divine wis- 

 dom in nature. Only a slight, perhaps an infinitesimal, 

 fraction, of those species which are theoretically possible 

 and which at one time or another arise can survive. 

 Those which are durable show all transitions from 

 the grossest disharmonies to an apparent lack of such 

 shortcomings. 



5. Minot had tried to prove that the death of meta- 

 zoa is due to the greater differentiation and special- 

 ization of their tissues. Admitting the immortality of 

 the unicellular organisms he argues that death is the 

 price metazoa pay for the higher differentiation of their 

 cells. This is of course purely metaphorical, but we 

 may put it into a form in which it is capable of discus- 

 sion in physicochemical terms, by assuming that death 

 is a necessary stage in the development of a species. 

 We are inclined, however, to follow Metchnikoff and 

 suspect some poison accidentally or unavoidably formed 

 in the body or some structural shortcoming as the cause 

 of "natural" death. 



