THE MECHANISM OF LIFE 221 



although it is probable that they should be different 

 if the metabolism is merely due to the radiation 

 from the electrical properties of the nucleus. But 

 this will also have, in addition to its electrical 

 and radio-active or electro-magnetic eflfects, its 

 chemical effects too. And if its chemical properties 

 resemble those of cyanogen, then we should have, 

 as Pfliiger has pointed out, many, if not all, the 

 chemical properties of living proteid as distinct 

 from dead proteid. 



It is therefore on a combination of these causes, of 

 the radio-activity of electrical and electro-magnetic 

 effects, of the diffusion of electrified particles or ions 

 and the chemical properties of the nuclei, together 

 with the metabolic and catalytic actions which are 

 thus set up in the cell in virtue of those other 

 actions, that the vitality of the total mass depends. 

 With cyanogen-like molecules in the living cell, 

 ■ proteids, carbohydrates and fats, as also the pro- 

 ducts of their decomposition, would be formed, so' 

 that all the principal or necessary products formed 

 in dead protoplasm would be found. 



Physiological chemists have long since main- 

 tained that the reactions of living and dead sub- 

 stances are different, such reactions being in the 

 former case almost invariably alkaline or neutral 

 and in the latter case usually acid. And, moreover, 

 there is a tendency for substances which are liquid 

 in living cell-substance to coagulate and become 

 solid when life ceases. The inference has been drawn 

 that there should exist, that in fact there do exist, 



