646 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXI. No. 539. 



active and energetic opponent of the laws 

 of physics and chemistry. It maintained 

 its own existence, not by obeying, but by 

 defying them; and though destined to be 

 finally overcome in the separate campaigns 

 of which each individual living creature is 

 the scene, yet like some guerilla chieftain 

 it was defeated here only to reappear there 

 with unabated confidence and apparently 

 undiminished force. ' ' 



We have arrived at the point where we 

 may say that catalysators direct energy or 

 facilitate its activity. So does life. There 

 is much in common. 



Going back to Ostwald, matter is an 

 energy grouping. Catalytic agents then 

 must be energy. Life is an agent of catal- 

 ysis. In frankness, I am unable to conceive 

 matter practically devoid of space occupa- 

 tion any more than I can comprehend en- 

 ergy except in the manner it is presented 

 through its influence on matter. With or 

 without the energetics of the distinguished 

 German scholar, we may hold to the thesis, 

 namely, life is energy or a manifestation 

 thereof. 



The experiments of Loeb and Matthews 

 on parthenogenesis through the agency of 

 dilute saline solutions strike at the root of 

 the problem. According to the modern 

 ideas of dilute solutions from the investiga- 

 tions of Faraday, Hittorf, Kohlrausch, 

 Van't Hoff and Arrhenius the ions have 

 electrical charges. Energy is involved, 

 available. Bohn has recently etfeeted 

 similar reproduction through the influence 

 of the rays of radium. These are forms 

 of energy not yet measured. 



One were devoid of judgment did he not 

 let it be clearly understood that he appre- 

 ciates the objections that may be raised, 

 with reason, in opposition to the mechan- 

 ical, physical, chemical or energy explana- 

 tion of life. As yet we do not know the 

 constitution of the highly complicated 

 structures of the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, 



nitrogen and sulphur compounds of the 

 nucleus; 'chemical matter,' as Neumeister 

 says. The same could have been truh said 

 of the sugars before Fischer's masterly 

 work beginning about a score of years 

 ago. Can we say, having learned the 

 structure, synthesized the nucleus, we shall 

 not be able in the laboratory to give it 

 that impulse which launches it upon a 

 career of reproduction? 



Powerful arguments favoring the vital- 

 istic theory, consequently opposed to the 

 energistic, are retention of form through 

 years, reproduction of species and atavistic 

 inheritance of character. 



Considering these three in order, it be- 

 comes us to show satisfactorily their ac- 

 cordance. 



1. Crystals beget like crystals in satu- 

 rated solutions of the substance. Crystal- 

 line growth is by apposition. This is a 

 most familiar phenomenon. Seed, one of 

 the means of nature's reproduction, may 

 remain years, centuries, in vaults, as within 

 the Egyptian pyramids. When subjected 

 to the proper conditions, they sprout and 

 reproduce. Does it not appeal to reason 

 to assume that the sprouting is just as well 

 due to the renewal of the conditions favor- 

 able to sprouting, like moisture and proper 

 temperature, as to some germ of life which 

 may have remained dormant for all those 

 years? All knowledge requires hypoth- 

 eses. If the seed does not sprout then 

 some factor is deficient. A fundamental 

 law of chemistry, based on multitudinous 

 experiments, is that like begets like. Mon- 

 era, Haeckel's simplest protozoans, either 

 the naked (gymnoniers) or those with cell- 

 walls (lepomera), grow by intussusception, 

 or taking of new matter within their in- 

 terior. 



2. Substances to be absolutely the same 

 must not fail in the least resemblance. No 

 two acorns, no two oak trees, no two horses 

 are ever exactly alike, although they may 



