THE BE G INNINGS OF LIFE. 



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'>"^^' Which { 



cular 



le 



system, 



^o'ution of 



^ Life ? when 



^g fluid?! 



) 



IS It 



^ Ofganizable 



of acting as 



atter, and of 



?w centres of 

 t some stage 

 living must 

 jly not more 

 living matter 



as are 



cast off 



dead organic 

 ■e pass, in al 

 3f various tie- 

 ,d ingredients 



Matter. The 

 ccurren^^ 



heo 



that the 



fluids 



property^"; 

 ord ' ^^\ 



w 



) 



thoug 



the 



in 



flueoc^ 



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237 



of certain conditions^ new modes of collocation amongst 

 the molecules of the matter in solution^ whereby the 

 transition may take place from the not-living to the 

 living. When these molecules aggregate so as to form 

 the smallest conceivable specks of protoplasm^ then 

 does nascent or potential pass into actual Life. But, 

 it may well be asked, must not the process be essentially 

 similar, whether we have to do with the phenomena 

 of growth or the phenomena of evolution ? In each act 

 of growth not-Uving matter must he converted into matter 



which lives ; just as we now suppose such a process 

 to occur when the minutest specks of living matter 

 arise in homogeneous organizable fluids. We are as 

 powerless to explain the one process, of which no one 

 doubts the reality, as we are the other, which — in part, 

 because it is less familiar — so 



many 



an impossible one. That living matter is capable of 

 growing and increasing in bulk is an obvious and 

 undeniable fact. Physiologists and others can, how- 

 ever, if they choose, doubt the reality of the occur- 

 rence of that to which we have been alluding, since 

 Archebiosis^ far from being obvious, is even extremely 

 difficult to establish with certainty. And accordingly, 

 whilst many physiologists readily grant that during the 



growth of organisms the not-living does continually 

 pass into the 

 cal forces alone ^ 



living 



under the influence of physi- 

 they, influenced by old theoretical 



^ It cannot of course be expected that those physiologists who still 

 believe in the existence of a special * vital principle' should so easily 



