LIFE 153 



Not only so, but metals may be poisoned, or 

 fatigued, or depressed, or stimulated, just like 

 living organisms. A scientist, who has specially 

 investigated the subject, has shown that sodium 

 carbonate has a stimulating action and potassium 

 bromide a depressant action on certain metals ; 

 and he has also shown that the electrical excita- 

 bility of metals may be diminished by such poisons 

 as veratrine, and abolished by such poisons as 

 oxalic acid, and that fatigue in metals runs the 

 same course as fatigue in living tissues. In fact, 

 there is a complete parallelism between the 

 phenomena of response in the organic and in- 

 organic. 



" Living response is found to be only a repetition 

 of responses seen in the inorganic. . . . Nowhere 

 in the entire range of these response phenomena — 

 inclusive as that is of metals, plants, and animals — 

 do we detect any breach of continuity .... there 

 is no necessity for the assumption of vital force 

 .... these things are determined, not by the play 

 of an unknowable and arbitrary vital force, but by 

 the working of laws that know no change, acting 

 equally and uniformly throughout the organic and 

 the inorganic worlds." 



And we find in dead matter many other qualities 

 and characters suggestive of life. 



Take crystals, for instance. They have definite 



