SCIENCE 



Friday, September 6, 1912 



CONTENTS 

 Address of the President tefore the British 

 Association for the Advancement of 

 Science: — 

 The Nature, Origin and Maimtenance of 

 Life: Propessoe E. A. Schafeb 289 



The International Congress of Mathematicians 312 



The Eighth International Congress of Applied 

 Chemistry 312 



Scientific Notes and News 313 



University and Educational News 314 



Discussion and Correspondence: — 



The Corrosion of Iron and Steel: Pko- 

 PESSOE William H. Walkee. The Inherit- 

 ance of Acquired Pigmentation: Dk. Leon- 

 ard Keene Hieshbebg 314 



Scientific Boohs: — 



KlinTcerfues's Theoretische Astronomie: 

 Peopessor W. D. MacMillan. Cross and 

 Cole's Modern Microscopy: Professor B. 

 F. Kingsbury 315 



The Number of Species of Living Verte- 

 brates: H. W. Henshaw 317 



Special Articles: — 



On the Significance of Variety Tests: Dr. J. 

 Arthur Harris. The Viscosity of Gases 

 and the Bunsen Flame: Professor Carl 

 Barus 318 



HSS. iBtesded for publiotion uid beoka, tte., intmdcd for 

 nritw shauld be lent to th« Editor of Scikkcie, GuriMB-oa- 

 HndaOB, K. Y. 



THE NAIUBE, OBIGIN AND MAINTENANCE 

 OF LIFE 1 



Everybody knows, or thinks lie knows, 

 what life is ; at least, we are all acquainted 

 with its ordinary, obvious manifestations. 

 It would, therefore seem that it should not 

 be difficult to find an exact definition. The 

 quest has neverthel^s baffled the most 

 acute thinkers. Herbert Spencer devoted 

 two chapters of his "Principles of Biol- 

 ogy" to the discussion of the attempts at 

 definition which had up to that date been 

 proposed, and himself suggested another. 

 But at the end of it all he is constrained 

 to admit that no expression had been found 

 which would embrace all the known mani- 

 festations of animate, and at the same time 

 exclude those of admittedly inanimate, ob- 

 jects. 



The ordinary dictionary definition of 

 life is "the state of living." Dastre, fol- 

 lowing Claude Bernard, defines it as "the 

 sum total of the phenomena common to all 

 living beings." Both of these definitions 

 are, however, of the same character as 

 Sydney Smith's definition of an arch- 

 deacon as "a person who performs archi- 

 diaconal functions." I am not myself 

 proposing to take up your time by attempt- 

 ing to grapple with a task which has proved 

 too great for the intellectual giants of 

 philosophy, and I have the less disposition 

 to do so because recent advances in knowl- 

 edge have suggested the probability that 

 the dividing line between animate and in- 

 animate matter is less sharp than it has 



^Address of the president of the British Asso- 

 ciation for the Advancement of Science given at 

 the Dundee meeting, 1912. The introductory re- 

 marks and the footnotes have been omitted. 



