THE PRESIDENT^ ADDRESS. 
259 
character of the elements entering into the composition of organic 
bodies. Or, to put it in another form, the elements of which 
organic bodies are composed are such as would issue in a remark- 
able degree of instability ; and, therefore, they form a combination 
most suited, from a chemical point of view, to undergo meta- 
morphic changes such as do actually characterize living things. 5 
The principal ingredients of organizable matter are six : C. 0. H. 
UST. S. Ph. 6 Now between some of these elements there is the 
most extreme diversity in respect of molecular mobility and 
chemical activity ; e.g., C exhibits a degree of atomic cohesion 
not found in the others, 0 displays the greatest chemical energy, 
and N the lowest degree of activity. These immense differences 
in the component elements of organizable matter afford scope for 
just these subtle and readily-produced changes, through the action 
of incidental physical forces, which are characteristic of what are 
called vital phenomena. Whatever subtlety and mysteriousness 
there may be in that we call Life, may, then, be reasonably ascribed 
to this chemico-mechanical source. In other words, an analysis 
of the chemical constituents of living bodies will lay bare just 
such unstable conditions as are likely to issue in those peculiar 
phenomena of change which distinguish the organic from the 
inorganic. The organic would thus seem to be only a name for 
the inorganic under special conditions of instability. Protein 
substances, such as Albumen, Fibrin, Casein, Globulin, and others 
which form the essential constituents of living tissue, are found to 
accord with this analysis. 
But, also, certain compounds called organic are producible by 
artificial means. 7 Compounds which were once supposed to be 
the sole product of a special force, or set of forces, called " vital," 
are now shown to be the product of the chemist's skill ; and the 
hope is that chemical skill will more and more solve the so-called 
mystery of "vital" phenomena, so that the hypothesis of Life 
being essentially different from what else is in the inorganic 
universe need not be entertained. There is a well known philo- 
sophical principle termed Parcimony ; that is, the avoidance of a 
multiplication of causes. What can spring from one known 
cause in Nature need not be supposed to come from some other. 
5 Spencer's Principles of Biology, i. pp. 1-20. 
6 Huxley's Physiology, p. 134. 
7 Bastian's Beginnings of Life, pp. 86-94. 
