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are so few that we can count tlieni on our finsjers, hut 

 witli tlie same elements at our command we can not re- 

 construct the simplest cell by chemical art. My dinner 

 may be composed of roast beef, plum ])udding and 

 pumpkin pie. This meal builds up the millions of vari- 

 ous substances in my body before I go to bed. I defy 

 the ultra scientist to draw a successful parallel between 

 this and any law of crystallization. We are asked to 

 believe, in the face of facts such as these, that v ater, a 

 •crystal, a grain of corn, an egg, and animal bodies are 

 all built up by exactly the same agency, in its lowest 

 powei', and that the vegetable and animal worlds are 

 only multiples of the grosser forms of matter, thus 

 making " vdtal force " a myth of the despised metaphy- 

 sicians. A crystal can not j^roduce its like as a cell 

 does. It can not repair injury to it as life does the 

 waste of tissue. Friction will reduce the size of the 

 one, but the living form thickens by its application to 

 the other. Vitality will rush to the rescue when a cut 

 is made. It will join the ends of a broken bone and 

 surround the breach with additional safecfuards. Chem- 

 istry can show no equal to the law of diffusion. We 

 can not imitate respiration in the laboratory by ex- 

 changing oxygen and carbonic acid through the same 

 septa at the same time. We might enumerate in an 

 endless catalogue, and put in antithesis the great differ- 

 ence that exists between chemical and vital processes. 

 The school of objectivists classify the beginnings, 

 varieties and movements of aH forms of organized life 

 into a group of "affinities." According to the class of 

 thinkers these may be called chemical, electii^e, orgauic 

 or iulierent, and if these terms are not satisfactory to 

 the opposite class of inquirers, refuge is taken in tlie 

 defliuti(m that "molecular life is a co-ordinating j)ower." 

 I contend that all these terms refer to one and the same 



