WHAT IS BATHYBIUS? 
351 
and I believe that from the nature of the problem this ignorance 
will continue. 
We are asked, wherein does the so-called vital force differ from 
other physical forces ? Oxygen and hydrogen combine to form 
water; if you admit vitality, why not require a principle of sequosity 
to explain this combination and its resultant phenomena? What 
better philosophical status,” asks Prof. Huxley, has vitality than 
SBquosity ? ” I reply, we require the admission of no new force 
to explain the combination of gases in the formation of water. 
The phenomena occur in accordance with known laws of affinity. 
The synthetical experiment is but one of a vast series of similar 
experiments, in each of which we can combine separate 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, 
hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen, existing in any form of proto- 
plasm, and we may even succeed in forcing those elements into 
an artificial combination 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 con- 
ditions ” are wanting, and, so far as experiment has hitherto gone, 
the laboratory has proved unable to supply those conditions. 
Some force ” is required which is not under the control of the 
ablest physicist, and which differs in kind as well as in degree 
from those with whose operations he is familiar. We infer this, 
because all the functions of the resultant of nature’s organic 
synthesis are different from those of all artificial products. It 
is this lacking force which we indicate under the name of vital ; 
and so long as experimental philosophers fail to make their 
artificial combinations do what it does, I claim to be as philo- 
sophical, and to be acting in as truly a scientific spirit, when I 
recognise its existence as when I speak of a magnetic 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 some- 
thing which has no representative or correlation in the not living 
matter which gave rise to it ? ” Surely the question, 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 living matter does contain something 
wanting to the “ not living matter.” 
The living organism increases, multiplies, and reproduces itself 
through a power that is inherent, whereas a crystal can only do so 
VOL. Vlll. — TS’O. XXXIII. A A 
