
WHAT IS BATHYBIUS ? 653 
The synthetical experiment is but one of a vast series of 
similar experiments, in each of which we can combine sepa- 
rate elements with absolute certainty that the resultants will 
be identical with, and fulfil all the functions of, the same 
products when formed in nature’s laboratory. But the case 
is different when we turn to living organisms. We may 
know the proportions of oxygen, bidiroguht; carbon, and ni- 
trogen, existing in any form of protoplasm, and we may 
even succeed in forcing those elements into an artificial com- 
bination having the same proportions, but in no single 
instance have we been able to endow such a combination 
with the powers of life. The resultant is not protoplasm. 
It does not live. It performs none of the vital functions. 
"Certain conditions" are wanting, and, so far as experiment 
has hitherto gone, the laboratory has proved unable to sup- 
ply those conditions. Some "force" is required which is 
not under the control of the ablest physicist, and which dif- 
fers in kind as well as in degree from those with whose opera- 
tions he is familiar. We infer this, because all the functions 
of the resultant of nature's organie synthesis are different 
from those of all artificial products. lt is this lacking force 
which we indieate under the name of vital; and so long as 
experimental philosophers fail to make their artificial combi- 
nations do what it does, I elaim to be as philosophical, and 
to be acting in as truly a scientific spirit, when I recognize 
its existence as when I speak of a magnetie force or of a 
force of gravitation. 
Professor Huxley asks, "What justification is there, then, 
for the assumption of the existence in the living matter of a 
something which has no representative or correlation in the 
not living matter which gave rise to it?” Surely the ques- 
tion, thus put, involves a fallacy. Professor Huxley admits 
that to produce the results referred to the introduction of a 
new element is needed. The not living matter requires the 
aid and instrumentality of matter that is living, and it is 
precisely this necessity which leads me to conclude that the 
