LIFE 157 



any organ — of the origin of a precipitate than of 

 a primary fibre — of the state in which crystallised 

 sugar exists in solution than of the rudiments of 

 organs in the embryo — he egregiously errs." 



" I try," says Professor William Keith Brooks, 

 of the Johns Hopkins University, " to treat all 

 living things, plants as well as animals, as if they 

 may have some part of a sensitive life like my 

 own, although I know nothing about the presence 

 or absence of sense in most living things, and am 

 no more prepared to make a negative than a 

 positive statement. While it is nonsense to regard 

 trees and rocks and lakes as endowed with mind, 

 it is nonsense because we know nothing about it, 

 and not because it is untrue ; for it is no less 

 nonsense to assert that stones are unconscious 

 than to assert that they are conscious." 



"The chemical processes of life," says Carl 

 Synder, " are no whit more mysterious than the 

 chemical processes which produce salt, or sugar, or 

 glass, or result in the burning of coal in the grate." 

 " To-day," says Jacques Loeb, " everybody who 

 is familiar with the field of chemical biology 

 acknowledges the fact that the chemistry of living 

 matter is not specifically different from the 

 chemistry of the laboratory. ... A measure- 

 ment of the quantity of CO formed and the 

 amount of heat produced gives approximately 



