The mystery of life: an essays in reply to Dr. Gull's attack on the theory of vitality in his Harveian oration for 1870

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THE

MYSTERY OF LIFE.

THE

MYSTERY OF LIFE:

AN ESSAY

IN REPLY TO

DR. GULL'S ATTACK ON THE THEORY OF VITALITY

IN HIS

HARVEIAN ORATION FOR 1870.

BY

LIONEL S. BEALE, M.B., F.R.S., '

Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians; Physician to King's College Hospital,

and formerly Professor of Physiology and of General and Morbid

Anatomy in King's College, London.

WITH TWO COLOURED PLATES.

LONDON:

J. & A. CHURCHILL, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
PHILADELPHIA, LINDSAY AND BLAKISTON.

1871.
[All rig/its reserved.]

4"K

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PREFACE.

The groundwork of the following essay
was published in the "Fortnightly Review," for
September ist, 1870, in reply to some remarks
by Dr. Gull, in his Harveian Oration delivered
before the President and Fellows of the Royal
College of Physicians, on June 24th of the
same year.

The importance of the issue cannot easily be
exaggerated. Forced by the evidence of very
many facts to accept the theory of vitality, I
would, nevertheless, abandon this idea assailed
by Dr. Gull, if the truth of any one of the
physical doctrines of life opposed to my views
had been rendered probable by scientific evi-
dence. So far, however, facts and observations
I on things living support the idea of vitality,
and are not favourable to any mechanical or
chemical hypothesis of life yet proposed, which

VI PREFACE.

last, therefore, rest at present upon authority
alone.

In this essay I have ventured to state some
of the arguments, which seem, to my judgment,
fatal to all physical hypotheses of life, and
have adduced a few of the most important
facts and observations, which have led me to
advocate a very different conclusion.

Grosvenor Street ;

February, 1871.

HARVEY.

" He was used to say, that he never dissected the body
of any animal without discovering something which he had
not expected or conceived of, and in which he recognized
the hand of an all-wise Creator. To this particular agency,
and not to the operation of general laws, he ascribed all the
phenomena of nature." — " T/it Roll of tlie Royal College of
Physicians" by Dr. Munk.

THE

MYSTERY OF LIFE.

HE Harveian Orator of 1870 pays me
the compliment of bringing under the
notice of the President and Fellows
of the College of Physicians some views of
mine concerning the nature of life. Dr. Gull
differs from me, however, and considers it
" strange " that any one should entertain the
opinion which I believe to be correct. Would
that he had seen the things that have convinced
me, or carefully submitted to examination the
data upon which my conclusions are founded,
and had subjected to critical analysis the facts
and arguments I have advanced in favour of
the views I feel it necessary to uphold. Had
Dr. Gull, and others who differ from me, acted
in this way, fallacies might have been detected,
errors pointed out, and a more correct inter-
pretation of facts afforded, than I have been
able to give. Instead, however, of entering

B

THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

into an examination of the grounds of my
theory, Dr. Gull simply accepts, supports, and
advocates the views of those who hold that
" life " is a form or mode of ordinary force, and
attacks the position that life is a power distinct
and apart from the forces of the non-living
world ; but he does not reply to the objections
which have been advanced against the theory
he so warmly advocates, nor does he overthrow
the arguments adduced in support of the doc-
trine he desires to controvert.

My view, which has been assailed by Dr.
Gull, is this : that " life is a power entirely
different from and in no way correlated with
matter and its ordinary forces." The words
have been taken from the second sentence of
my work on Protoplasm, which, however, runs
thus in the original : " Life is a power, force, or
property of a special and peculiar kind, tem-
porarily influencing matter and its ordinary
forces, but entirely different from, and in no way
correlated with, any of these."

Strange as it may appear in these days, the
orator commences his oration by implying that
there exists in some minds a doubt " whether
man is altogether an object of scientific study

UNFAIR INFERENCE.

or not ; whether the mysteries of his organisa-
tion are fairly subjects admitting of investiga-
tion;" and, therefore, whetherit is becoming1 in
the Harveian Orator to stir up our minds to
search these mysteries out to their fullest ex-
tent. It does not appear that anyone has ac-
tually expressed himself against such inquiry,
but to Dr. Gull himself are we indebted for the
inference that one who entertains the opinion
which he desires to controvert must therefore
hold life to be no proper object of investigation,
and must assume that the phenomena of living
beings are " out of the range of science." Such
a person, moreover, deplores the orator, con-
signs us to a " perpetual mental inactivity and
ignorance in that region of knowledge in which,
above all others, man is interested." But is
such an inference natural or just ? Does it
really flow from the premises, or has it anything
whatever to do with them ? Might it not have
been drawn from any other supposable pre-
mises with almost equal justification ? For
how can the opinion that life is a power entirely
different from ordinary force, involve the posi-
tion that man's organisation is not fitted for
scientific study ? If, Dr. Gull seems to argue,

B 2

THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

life is correlated motion, it is a legitimate sub-
ject for scientific inquiry ; while, if life is not
correlated motion, the changes in the matter
cannot be investigated.

Less than thirty years ago, says the Harveian
Orator, it was gravely questioned (but by whom
is not stated) whether a living body could not
generate some of the elements of which it was
composed by its own vital force, and it was
considered that an organism formed the ma-
terials of its higher structures, and was capable
of transmuting elements. Is there not here
just the suspicion of a suggestion intended that
persons who in these days consider life to be
different from, and in no way correlated with,
the ordinary forces of non-living matter, really
may have some strong affection for those
equally (?) absurd views of thirty years ago ?

Surely it ought not to be necessary for me to
state that I do believe the correlation of forces,
as well as the truths of physics and chemistry,
as firmly as any man can believe them. I
never supposed, not even when I was a first
year's student, that an organism formed the
materials of which it was composed out of
nothing or out of itself, or that one element

EXCITING PREJUDICES.

could be converted into another element. Dr.
Gull, like many more who have committed
themselves to force views, does not appear to
see that my argument is not in any way opposed
to facts or to established truths of physics.

Such suggestions as those above referred to
seem to me objectionable, if not unjust. They
are calculated to make people think that the
conclusions I have arrived at are absurd and
unreasonable. They may even prejudice people
very unfairly against my views. If, indeed, this
is not the object of the statements, the reason for
introducing such remarks is by no means clear.
To attempt to excite prejudice in a reader's
mind against the conclusions of an opponent,
instead of attacking his facts and arguments, is
almost an admission" of weakness. It is indeed
significant, if, as seems to be the case at this
time in E norland, an investigator cannot be
permitted to remark that facts which he has
demonstrated, and phenomena which he has
observed, render it impossible for him to assent
at present to the dogma that life is a mode of
ordinary force, without being held up, by some
who entertain opinions at variance with his
own, as a person who desires to stop or

6 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

retard investigation, who disbelieves in the cor-
relation of the physical forces, and in the esta-
blished truths of physics/""

Is it possible that belief in a something, a
power, force, agency, or, call it what you will,
which is beyond the range of physical and
chemical investigation, and cannot be rendered
evident to the senses, should disqualify a man
for scientific investigation, any more than a
belief in a God renders it impossible for him to
successfully pursue observation and experiment ?
It ought not to be necessary to state that the
proposition that vital power is distinct from
force does not involve a belief in the absurdity
that life creates matter or transmutes one ele-
ment into another.

Whatever may be the fate of the inferences

I have drawn concerning the nature of vital

* Dr. Tyndall goes even still further. Instead of an-
swering arguments, he gives expression to some of the
words of his friend, Huxley, and speaks of me as a " micro-
scopist, ignorant alike of Philosophy and Biology," and as
having been " lately Professor in a London College, famous
for its orthodoxy." That I am not a convert to the Philo-
sophy and Biology of Tyndall and Huxley is perfectly true ;
but that my connection with King's College has in any way
influenced my views, is a suggestion as devoid of foundation
as the fiery cloud hypothesis of evolution itself.

VITALITY.

actions, they have been deduced from facts of
observation. The theory has, as it were, forced
itself upon me in the course of my work. In
the spring of 1861 I had the honour of de-
livering, at the College of Physicians, a course
of lectures " On the Structure and Growth of
the Simple Tissues of the Body ; " during the
delivery of which, upwards of sixty micro-
scopical specimens were exhibited and des-
cribed. The conclusions I drew were based
upon the facts thus publicly demonstrated. My
lectures, with a description of the specimens,
were afterwards published and illustrated with
numerous drawings from the preparations. This
volume was afterwards translated into German
by my friend, Prof. Victor Carus, of Leipzig.
Most of the original preparations still remain
in good preservation, and many new ones have
been added, year after year. So far from my
conclusions having been weakened by the more
recent researches of other observers, they have
been confirmed and extended.

The evidence in favour of vitality being an
agency distinct from mere force, — being the
power by which all living things are charac-
terized, and which absolutely separates them

8 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

r

from the non-living, is so strong that it seems to
me we can only escape from the conclusion if
we deny or ignore incontrovertible facts.

The particular view adopted by me has
then resulted from facts of observation. It is
a conclusion which has forced itself upon my
mind after many years of careful work, — a con-
clusion from which I have tried to escape, but
have failed to do so. I have endeavoured to
account for the phenomena by other theories,
but have not been successful, nor have attempts
on the part of others been more fortunate.
The doctrine of vitality is one which I should
never have accepted if, by the views more
generally entertained and taught, a sufficient
explanation of the simplest phenomena of living
beings had been afforded ; if, for example, the
movements of the simplest forms of living
matter could have been accounted for, if the
changes which occurred during the develop-
ment of a cilium, during its period of vibratile
activity, and when it died, could have been ex-
plained— nay, if the mode of increase of a
blade of grass, or the sprouting of a micro-
scopic fungus had been shown to depend upon
physical and chemical changes only.

LIFE NOT CORRELATED FORCE.

Notwithstanding all that has been asserted
to the contrary, not one vital action has yet
been accounted for by physics and chemistry.
The assertion that life is correlated force rests
upon assertion alone, and we are just as far
from an explanation of vital phenomena by
force hypotheses as we were before the dis-
covery of the doctrine of the correlation of the
physical forces. In short, this most important
discovery in physics does not affect the question
of the nature of the phenomena peculiar to
living beings.

Each additional year's labour only serves
to confirm me more strongly than before, in
the opinion that the physical doctrine of life
cannot be sustained, and when I review in my
mind the evidence upon which the doctrine of
vitality rests, it appears to me extraordinary
that any one can persuade himself that a thing,
possessing in itself the power or property of
transforming matter and force in a definite way,
is itself mere matter and force, — that that which
converts is no more than that which is con-
verted. Because, as Dr. Gull remarks, " a me-
chanical cause in its simplest form is evolved
into its effect by suppression," it does not

IO THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

surely follow that the organic processes are
correlatives of the lower forces. Because heat,
light, electricity, &c, are but other forms or
modes of motion, that, therefore, life must be
also a higher correlate, is very strange reason-
ing. Such an assertion begs the whole question
of the analogy existing between the living and
non-living. Because the living body does not
transmute its material elements, therefore, all
vital phenomena result from physics and che-
mistry, is a very remarkable argument, but
surely not conclusive. We all agree that the
materials of which the living body is consti-
tuted are the same as those of which non-living
matter consists, and that the forces are the
same. The question is whether the arrange-
ments of the matter, the form of the living being,
and the guidance of the forces in living things,
are due to the working of ordinary material
forces, or to a power of an altogether different
order.

The relation between vital power and the
ordinary forces of matter may not be more
intimate than the relation between the man
who makes a water-mill, and the forces which
raise the water that drives the wheel, or the

FORCE NOT CONSTRUCTIVE. I I

materials of which the mill is constructed.
And yet the water-mill could not have been
made by the water nor by the wood nor iron
which in part constitute the mill, nor by the
mighty forces imprisoned in these materials.
The man, not the forces of the matter or of the
water, constructs the mill. Where, then, is the
evidence that justifies Dr. Gull, and those whom
he follows, in asserting that any form or mode
of ordinary force has constructive power ? F orce
is mighty, force is powerful, and force may be
dcsti'uctive ; but what evidence can be adduced
in favour of the constructive agency of any mode
of force ? Can any or all the forms of force yet
discovered construct an insignificant monad any
more than they can make an umbrella or build
a house ? Dr. Gull neither notices the objec-
tions which have been raised to the view con-
cerning the forming, building, and constmicting
powers of force, nor adduces one new fact or
argument in its support.

Some force devotees may perhaps be inclined
to regard the most beautiful works of art, as
well as of nature, as mere force productions,
and hold that form is but the image impressed
by force. But unless something directs, will

12 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

form appear ? Is not that something other than
the force, is it not master and director of the
force ? Are not force and matter his tools, and
does not form result from the particular way in
which the master, director, and designer works f
Whatever name be given to this something, I
cannot conceive that it can be a correlate of
material force. Will any one maintain that the
man who made a machine is a correlate of the
heat that set it in motion after it was made ?

The term vital power has been applied by
me to the marvellous agency which, besides
giving rise to form, silently effects the analysis
of compounds and causes their elements to be
rearranged, so that when synthesis occurs new
compounds result, which did not exist before.
The complex operations of analysis and syn-
thesis are performed as in a moment, and with-
out any bulky, cumbrous, though elaborate and
beautiful appliances, such as the chemist and
physicist are forced to employ, and the skill
to use which can only be acquired after years
of patient study and earnest work. Nature's
" apparatus " is a tiny mass of clear, transparent,
structureless stuff, it may be less than the
TooWoth of any inch in diameter. This is also

GERMS AND THEIR "PHYSICAL RELATIONS." I 3

Nature's laboratory. Here her chemist, " life"
is at work, and his work is perfect.

But let us consider the matter from another
stand-point. Here are two minute masses of
perfectly structureless, colourless, living matter.
No difference between them can be demon-
strated by physics or chemistry. They have
no structure. They are soft and diffluent. One
placed under certain conditions will become a
dog, the other a man ; but from the dog-germ
you cannot by any alteration of conditions ob-
tain a man, any more than from the man-germ
anything but a man, or parts of a man, can be
evolved. Now what is the difference between
the man-livine-matter and the dogf-livingf-mat-
ter which could not be distinguished by physical
or chemical investigation ? I would answer a
transcendent difference, — but in power. Dr.
Gull would say these germs " became through
a definite set of physical (!) relations like the
parents from which they sprang." He remarks,
that whether the grerms are as " limited and
specific as we have hitherto regarded them is
the questio vexata of the day." But, as will
be observed, the whole question is begged in
the words " physical relations." The relations

14 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

in question cannot be correctly called physical,
for they are very complex, being partly physical
and partly vital, while they result in part from
the state of things brought about by the action
and reaction of vital and physical agencies.
The relations in question could never have been
established by the operation of physics only.

But the conclusion accepted is that " life '' is
an undiscovered correlative of force. And the
7indiscovered — that is, a mere guess or fancy — is
a modern idol. Has science, with her observa-
tion, her experimental method, and her facts,
really been brought to this ?

Can the Harveian Orator adduce good reasons
for his " full and implicit belief that the as yet
mysterious phenomena of life are correlative
with the lower forces of nature ?" As soon as
this has been done, many who dissent, and can
express clearly the grounds of their dissent,
will cordially embrace the new faith. But
surely we who differ may be pardoned for being
heartily tired of hearing the argument repeated,
" that because nothing passes into us but matter,
and nothing passes out of us but matter, and
nothing can be got from us after we are dead
but matter — therefore we who are actually

LIVING AND DEAD. 1 5

living are matter only." Everybody knows
about the matter, but he wants to know what
makes this matter do things while it is alive
which it cannot do when it is dead, and which
matter cannot be made to do before it begins
to live, — before it becomes a part of matter
which lives already.

According to physical force doctrines the
living state is not very widely separated from
the non-living condition, and Dr. Gull confesses
that he cannot draw the line between the living-
and the dead. But surely it will not be main-
tained that a line cannot be drawn. If, then, one
form of philosophy is confessedly incompetent to
explain a familiar phenomenon, is it not better
to try some other kind of philosophy than to
accept, and without enquiry, the conclusion
that states so very far removed from one another,
so absolutely distinct according to all ordinary
V evidence and means of judging, really differ from
one another only in degree ?

It is admitted that the supposed vital corre-
late has not yet been obtained from heat, light,
electricity, or converted into any one of these
or other modes of ordinary energy, but it is
said this will be proved to be possible. The

1 6 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

force-correlation doctrine of vitality, therefore,
draws largely not only upon our faith in the
prophecy that some new mode of force will be
discovered, but that when it shall have been
discovered it will undoubtedly transcend in its
capacity every mode of force yet known. It
will be found to be at least as far above chemical
force as this is superior to ordinary motion.
But the advocates of the force-doctrine of life
stake everything upon the truth of the prophecy
and we who irreconcileably differ in opinion
from them must be content to wait, and in the
meantime be restricted to observation and
experiment, because we are not gifted with the
prophetic spirit, while they, more fortunately
circumstanced, may develope fancies, and ex-
pound the discoveries of their imagination.
But for how long are we expected to continue
to bow down to dogma — for a limited period
only, or for as long a time, as the prophecy may
remain unfulfilled ?

It may be trice that chemistry ceases in our
living tissues under that form to " appear under
some higher correlative," but it has not been
proved, nor has any step been made towards
proof. Can anybody give us a conception of the

FORCE NOT FORMATIVE. I 7

"higher correlative" whose coming is announced,
or is it a fiction of the mechanical imagination
— an adumbration of a phantom in that con-
stantly recurring dream about unity ? Because
we have experience that heat may assume the
form or mode of motion, light, magnetism, or
electricity, that therefore there are other modes
of force unknown, but which will certainly be
discovered some day, and that one of these is
the vital mode, is the reasoning we are expected
to accept. Correlation is the abracadabra of
the long prophecied, but still non-existent science
of mechanical biology. That the non-forming
correlatives of non-forming primary energy,

\ heat, light, electricity, magnetism, chemical
action may have a yet undiscovered correlative

\endowed with formative power cannot be denied,
but is it more probable than would be the
assertion that intelligence has been evolved
from stones, or that order has resulted from
chaos, or that design has been the necessary
consequence of conditions powerless to con-
dition ?

Now let us place but a portion of one of the
lowest living forms under a high magnifying
power, and let us see if the force-correlation

c

1 8 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

doctrine will enable us to account for the
phenomena it exhibits. We demonstrate some
transparent stuff which takes from around it
certain matters dissolved in the water in which
it lives, and converts these into stuff like itself.
How ? " By its molecular machinery, worked
by its molecular forces," answers the force-
philosophy. It moves, and different portions
of the little piece move in opposite directions
at the very same instant. What makes it move ?
" Its molecular machinery by the laws of mole-
cular physics," we are told ! And is it really
to be expected that inquiry is to be stifled,
and curiosity satisfied by such announcements
as these ? How are the forces conditioned ?
What is the structure of the supposed force-
conditioning machinery, and how did it make
itself ? No answer but " future investigation
will decide." But at this time we demonstrate,
by our own observation, that the stuff that
moves is clear, transparent, and, under a power
of five thousand diameters, perfectly structure-
less. We can see no " machinery," and we
know that there is no machinery in the living
matter at all like any machinery known to us,
or in any way tending to approach it in charac-

MOLECULAR MACHINERY. 1 9

ter. If, therefore, the term " machinery " is
to be applied to this transparent matter, the
word has had a new meaning assigned to it,
and syrup or water might be spoken of as
" machinery," and would come into the same
category as the so-called " molecular machinery"
of living matter. This clear, transparent, struc-
tureless living- stuff came from stuff like itself,
which had similar powers and properties.
How this can properly be regarded as the child
of conditions, the creature of external circum-
stances, the offspring of physical force, an out-
come of the non-living, it is indeed difficult to
understand. Was it not derived from parental
living matter ? or have our eyes and under-
standings utterly deceived us ? Are its pheno-
mena of motion, of increase, and of multipli-
cation due to the conversion of the forces of
the stuff it lives upon, and not in any way
to peculiar power or influence transmitted to it
from its predecessors, and manifested by them,
but by no form of non-living matter yet dis-
covered ? Is the fact of its derivation and
multiplication to be regarded as of no import-
ance, and its mere matter, which after all is
mov^and chang^, to be all in all ? Might

c 2

20 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

not that very matter have been, and the very
forces manifested by it, have been for ages,
and might not similar conditions as regards
heat, light, moisture, and others, have per-
sisted, and for any length of time, and
yet no living stuff of any kind have been
evolved ?

But those who teach that life is force will
not begin by demonstrating the facts they rely
upon in connection with simple living things,
and gradually advance from these to the con-
sideration of more complex beings. If we are
to learn anything about living things in general
surely our instructors should direct our attention
to the phenomena occurring in the lowest and
simplest beings, and during the earliest stage
of development of a complex creature, instead
of commencing upon a man, a full account of
whose life-phenomena cannot be comprised in
many volumes.

Now, why do so many philosophers exhibit
little inclination to begin by inquiring about the
simplest living things ? Why do our text-
books begin with the consideration of the com-
plex physiology of the fully developed man,
instead of discussing, in the first place, the

VITALITY NOT A PROPERTY OF MATTER. 2 1

simple physiology of simple living matter ?
One would have thought that this was just the
point from which Mr. Mill, or Mr. Herbert
Spencer, would have desired to start. Here is
a thing increasing in size and then separating
so as to produce many like things. How does
it increase ? Of course by drawing matter to
itself. But by virtue of what property does it
draw and select ? What physical property
enables it to chose one thing and reject another ?
How does it divide, and why does one portion
separate from another portion ? Matter that is
alive first draws matter towards it, and then
this same matter separates itself, and at length
one portion moves away from the rest. Simple
phenomena, easily stated, easily demonstrated,
doubtless due to antecedent phenomena and
these to their antecedents ; but is this the only
explanation that is possible ? Doubtless if it
were not that physiology is embarrassed by
" natural difficulties " (Mill) these things would
have been explained by physicists long ago ;
but if we areue as if we understood them
when we do not understand anything about
them, what do we gain by the process, however
successfully carried out ?

THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

A child can surely be taught that a little bit
of soft transparent stuff takes up matter around
it, which is not like it, and converts this into
matter like itself, and so increases in size, and
that it divides and subdivides, so that from
one mass many masses result. This is what
goes on in the development of the simplest
living thing and in man himself. Not only is
the process common to every known form of
living matter, but it is peculiar to living matter,
and is not known to occur in matter in any other
state. And this matter came from pre-existing
matter in a like state ! But the Harveian maxim,
<l Omne vivum ex ovo," says the Harveian
Orator, " cannot perhaps be now maintained in
its integrity ;" for science occupies itself with
the " possibilities of occasional automatic gene-
ration" ! Men have indeed long been labouring
at such possibilities of the imagination, but the
experimental spontaneous ovum has yet to be
brought forth.

Taking the marvellous range of living beings,
from the simplest living speck which grows and
multiplies under the most varying conditions,
some having been regarded hitherto as incom-
patible with life in any form, to that living

VITAL POWER NOT FORCE. 2$

matter exercising in man the highest and most
exalted function, which is destroyed if very
slight change occurs in the complex conditions
under which it has been ordained that it shall
live — it seems extraordinary, considering the,
very confident assertions that have been made
by those who advocate the physical doctrine of
life, that not one single case to justify the asser-
tion that vital actions are to be explained by
physics and chemistry should have been brought
forward.

It is idle and misleading to call heat, and
light, and electricity, and motion " vital forces'*
when they are manifested in living beings, and
physical forces when operating in the outside
world. The name given to a force ought not
to be changed according as the seat of its
operation varies. But by this proceeding the
advocates of the physical doctrine try to make
people think that the only forces operating in
living bodies are physical, and that these are
the only forces which their opponents refer to
when they speak of " vital power.*" The
physical philosophers ignore entirely, or deny
the phenomena which they cannot explain by
physics, and seek to hide truly vital phenomena

24 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

in such phrases as " molecular changes," " phy-
sical relations," " modified," " conditioned," and
many more. In this way they succeed in en-
closing for the time, as it were in a thick mist,
the question at issue.

So, too, some speak of physical energy,
and of chemical energy, and of vital energy, as
if these were three forms of energy which had
been proved to be closely related to each other.
Of the chemical and physical forms of energy
something is known, but of the relationship of
the so-called vital energy nothing has been
proved. We only know that the influence it
exerts is altogether different from that which has
been traced to physical and chemical energy.

Is it not incorrect to speak of the action
of a nerve, or muscle, as being due to vital
energy, seeing that the energy in question may
be simply physical and chemical, although it is
manifested in the tissues of a living being ?
The energy is probably of the same nature as
the physical and chemical energy manifested by
non-living matter out of the body. But if under
vital energy it is sought to include formative
tissue-producing power, an interpretation is given
to the term energy or force, which cannot be justi-

VITAL ENERGY NOT FORCE.

fied, as there is absolutely no reason for inferring
that any mode of energy possesses formative
constructive power. The idea of motion, or
heat, or light, or electricity forming, or building
up, or constructing any texture capable of ful-
filling a definite purpose, seems absurd, and
opposed to all that is known, and yet is the
notion continually forced upon us that vitality,
which does construct, is but a correlate of
ordinary energy or motion. It is, however,
obvious, that unless it can be shown, — i, that
vitality can be converted into heat, or some
other mode of force ; or, 2, that some mode of
force or energy can be made to assume the
form of vitality, there is no sufficient reason for
accepting the conclusion which has been held
with such tenacity, and so unfairly forced upon
public attention. The doctrine is indeed only
a dogma resting upon assertion, and can only
be entertained in opposition to every accepted
principle of scientific observation and experi-
ment. Education in the new physical philosophy
has undoubtedly excited in the mind of many
persons, certain prejudices from which they
find it exceedingly difficult to emancipate them-
selves. The heavy penalties attached to the

26 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

expressions of an opinion against physical
force views, and the coercive persuasion em-
ployed in teaching molecular physics, tend to
prevent free discussion, and enforce submission
to a form of intolerance which is exhibited in
the scientific writing's Gf more than one member
of the new school.

But surely it is very significant that every
particle of living matter, of every sort known,
should manifest phenomena of a particular kind
—that is, should appropriate certain matters,
and alter these, and grow and multiply by di-
vision, while no form of non-living matter has
been discovered which exhibits any like phe-
nomena. It is said such matter will be obtained
from the non-living some day, and that the view
that non-living matter may do these things
under ''certain conditions" not yet found out, is
in harmony with the " tendency of modern
thought." It is said that we are on the eve of
discovering how to make living things from
non-living matter — nay, that in a few instances
this had actually been done. But it is very
remarkable that the drawings of the supposed
new organisms said to be formed direct from the
non-living, without parentage, so closely resemble

SUPPOSED NEW ORGANISMS.

certain org-anisms well known to us, and of
very ancient lineage, that we may feel quite
sure that the beings themselves, had they been
compared, would not have been distinguished
from one another. Indeed, the organisms sup-
posed to have been prepared artificially, have
in many cases been identified as a well known
species, which had descended from its prede-
cessors of the same kind in the ordinary vital
manner. The supposed artificially produced
organism will go through exactly the same
phases of change as the one derived from a
pre-existing creature.

It has been assumed that the actions of man
and the highest animals differ in essential nature
from those of the lowest creatures, but it would
not be in accordance with the facts learnt by
study, in any department of nature, to assume
that the highest form of living matter is formed,
or works, or acts upon principles totally dif-
ferent from those which obtain with respect to
the lowest simplest kinds of living matter
known. In the absence of positive evidence to
the contrary, it would be dangerous in the
extreme to assume that, for example, a monad
may be built up anew from the non-living,

28 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

while the man-germ, or the dog-germ, could
not be so formed ; or that the white blood cor-
puscles, or the epithelial cells of man, grow and
multiply and live like the lower, simpler or-
ganisms, while the cells of man's brain grow,
and live, and act in some totally different
manner. The proof of the working of a general
law at one end of the scale of living beings,
will soon be followed by a conviction of its
application to phenomena occurring at the other.
But the conclusion referred to would be directly
at variance with the actual results of observa-
tion and experiment, opposed to the facts known
in connection with development, and in the
highest degree improbable. Confusion, not
order, would in that case dominate in nature.
Yet I will, nevertheless, freely admit that it is
possible that the same living thing might be
generated in two very different ways, but the
facts at present known render it almost certain
that no evidence will be obtained in favour ot
such an inference, and that as investigation ad-
vances the correctness of such a notion will be
shown to be so very improbable that the idea
will be abandoned.

The arguments which have been advanced in

FORMIFACTION AND CRYSTALLISATION. 2Q,

favour of the genesis of living matter de novo,
should be applicable to the formation of the
marvellous sperm and germ elements, and the
highest cells or elementary parts of man and
the higher animals. If an organic particle can
be formed in a solution of non-living matter,
like a crystal, and assume the living state at the
time, before, or afterwards, there is no good
reason for concluding that the living particle
from which the highest animals and man are
developed, is produced upon different principles,
or in obedience to different laws ; for neither in
dimensions, nor in form, nor in composition, nor
in any other essential character, property, or
quality, to be demonstrated by physics, che-
mistry, or observation, does the one particle
differ from the other. Nay, no less an authority
than Owen seems to accept this conclusion.
He considers that all cells are really formed in
this manner, and employs the term "formifac-
tion " in speaking of the supposed deposition
of cells and elementary parts from organic
solutions. Unfortunately, however, the " cells"
supposed to be crystallised from a solution by
" formifaction" existed long before the solution in
which they are said to be formined was pro-

3<3 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

duced. The argument is faulty throughout.
The supposed facts are not facts, and the con-
clusion is necessarily fallacious.

The formation of a crystal in a solution is no
more analogous to the production of a monad
in a solution of organic matter, than the further
" growth" of the crystal is analogous to the
further " growth" of the monad, or than the
formation of a second crystal upon the first is
analogous to the development of a second
monad from that already existing. The crys-
talline matter can be redissolved, and will
crystallise again as many times as we like, but
the monad matter cannot be redissolved and re-
formified, any more than a dog or a man can be
dissolved and then produced again from the
solution. Neither man, nor any living thing,
nor any kind of living matter, can be dissolved,
for that which lives is incapable of solution. It
may be killed, and then some of the products
resulting from its death may be dissolved, but
this is a very different thing from dissolving the
living matter. Nor can the lifeless substances
which are dissolved ever be made to assume
ao-ain the form and character they once pos-
sessed. Nor under any circumstances can the

" OMNE VIVUM EX OVO. 3 1

living thing, once dead, be made to live again,
even if no attempts whatever be made to effect
its solution.

But let us mark the astonishing development
which has recently occurred in regard to the
new views. In the first place, Harvey's maxim,
" Omne vivum ex ovo," has, we are told, be-
come a mere " form of thought," and will soon
be set aside in favour of such new and con-
vincing conclusions as the following, which it is
suggested may prepare our minds for the recep-
tion of the New Philosophy. Corresponding to
the states, living monad, dead monad, have we not
living crystal, dead crystal ? For moving mo-
nad, growing monad — moving, growing crystal ?
For assimilating monad, assimilating crystal ?
For multiplying monad, have we not multiplying
crystal ? Does not the crystal, like the monad,
proceed from an invisible germ ? May not the
crystal, like the monad, produce millions from
a fluid holding in solution the materials of its
pabulum ? Does not the genesis of the monad,
like the genesis of the crystal, depend upon a
mere collocation of matter and force ? Who,
therefore, can refuse to believe that whenever
the matter and forces are properly collocated,

32 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

living things will be formed de novo? And
since the earliest state of the matter of man
cannot be distinguished from the earliest state
of the matter of the lowest living forms, is it not
certain that when modern science shall have
discovered the complex collocations requisite
to produce such a result, man shall be able to
produce from a solution of non-living matter a
living germ, — if not of man, at any rate of one
of the higher animals ? This, if placed under
the requisite conditions for development (which
are not understood at this moment, but will very
shortly be accurately defined) would, of course,
assume its characteristic form. Indeed, if we
accept the statements that have been made, it
may be regarded as certain, that at no very
distant period an artificially evolved living being
will triumphantly proclaim its own independent
origin, and from its own experience relate to us
the story of its evolution, traced back through
various stages to its immediate construction out
of the non-living, when the lifeless molecules of
the inorganic so arranged themselves as to
develop from their lower forces the higher vital
mode. Then will the sceptic regret his unbelief,
and joyfully become a convert to the New
Philosophy.

DOES THE SUN FORM THE HEART ? 3 7,

But now let us withdraw for a time from the
dazzling speculations and fancies among which
the physicist loves to dwell, and study for a while
sober realities, — facts of observation, — in order
to ascertain if from these we can learn anything
that may assist us in forming an opinion as to
the probable nature of the powers in living
matter, the working results of which are so
very different from those known of any forces
acting upon matter in every other state. Let
us carefully examine the actual structure of a
tissue, and study carefully the manner in which
its growth occurs, in the hope that, from the
facts ascertained in the course of the enquiry,
we may be able to decide if there is any good
reason for believing that the physical doctrine
of life rests upon a sure basis of fact, and
determine if such a dogma as " the Sun forms
the heart " is admissible.

It is a matter of indifference to me what
tissue be selected for the investigation, and it is
of no importance whether it be taken from an
organism high or low in the scale of created
beings, — whether it is animal or vegetable-
young or old. But as the heart has been ad-
duced as an organ actually formed by the Sun,

D

34 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

let us take a small portion of its tissue and
examine it. The thin muscular wall of the
auricle of the heart of a young frog, or, still
better, of the tree frog (Hyla), is well adapted for
this purpose, as it is so very thin that no cutting
or dissection is required in order to make it
thin enough for examination even with the
highest magnifying powers. It is so transparent
that every texture entering into its structure
can be seen in a properly prepared specimen.

The drawing- in Plate I will give some idea
of what can be made out. The network of
branching fibres seen in every part of the speci-
men, and of different degrees of fineness, is mus-
cular tissue. By the contraction of these the
thin wall of the auricle is made to compress the
blood contained in the auricular cavity, and
force it onwards into the ventricle. But an-
other network of still finer fibres, but not con-
tractile, will be seen ramifying upon and amongst
the muscular fibres. These are branches of
nerves, through the instrumentality of which the
contraction of the muscular tissue is effected.

At the lower part of the drawing, to the right,
are seen some angular bodies of large size,
occupying the spaces between the muscular

DRY OF LI

PLATK I.

■m - |

gmjt <

innestportionoftheauncleoftheheartofthehvla.orgreen tree-frog, showin: i
cularfibres. The network of fine nerve fibres composed of still finerflbres is seen, ra
them is The connection of the finest nerve fibres with the ganilion cell . iu the

of the -vn in the specimen. These fibres lei and as they

pass to their distribution divide into bundles which pursue opposite directions. The connective

--corpuscles are represented m the lower part only of the drawing to the right. The bio]

from which all these ti - been formed is coloured red in the drawing. A portion of this

figure is represented more highly magnified in Plate IT. Fig 1, opposite p. 46.

^sj; of an inch

x 215.

\

BIOPLASM. 35

fibres and the nerve fibres. These are the so-
called connective tissue corpuscles. They are
only represented over the small space indicated
in order that the arrangement of the muscular
and nerve fibres may be seen more distinctly.
These connective-tissue-corpuscles are con-
cerned in the production of the transparent
passive fibrous or connective tissue which forms,
as it were, the basis texture of the auricular
wall — in which the more active nerve and mus-
cular tissues are embedded. But instead of
discussing the characters of this passive texture,
we will consider briefly a few points of interest
in connection with the arrangement of the
active and more important tissues, the nerves
and muscles.

Connected with every tissue referred to, and
indeed every tissue in existence, are masses of
an oval, circular, or irregular form, consisting of
very soft structureless matter, which is coloured
red in the drawing. The masses were also red
in the specimen from which the drawing was
taken, in consequence of the tissue having been
exposed, immediately after death, to the action
of an ammoniacal solution of carmine. In this
way these bodies are obtained of a deep red

D 2

36 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

colour, while the tissue (muscle, nerve, &c.)
remains perfectly colourless. By this remark-
able action of an alkaline solution of carmine
we are enabled to distinguish, and with certainty,
every particle of living matter which grows and
forms; from the passive lifeless matter in a
tissue, which last possesses no formative power.
The living matter in its normal state being per-
fectly colourless often escapes notice. Indeed,
this most important constituent of living bodies
has been passed over as of no importance
at all. Its presence has been regarded in
some cases as accidental, and every trace has
been entirely omitted from many drawings of
tissues in our text books. Consequently, the
most erroneous views concerning the changes
which occur during the formation of tissue and
the nature and causes of them are entertained.
I have therefore made new drawings of many
of the tissues, for the purpose of showing this
living matter, without which these tissues could
not have been formed, and which is concerned
in all the changes which the tissues and organs
of the body undergo in health and disease.

The living matter differs entirely from matter
in every other state, and I have called it bioplasm,

BIOPLASM OR LIVING MATTER. 2)7

living plasm, germinal or growing matter. Now
in the drawing, masses of bioplasm or bioplasts
will be seen embedded in, or in intimate relation
with, the different tissues. In connection with
the muscular tissue of the heart are very
numerous elongated oval bioplasts, situated at
short intervals from one another. More than
five times as many of these exist in the cardiac
muscular tissue as in ordinary muscular fibre.
The activity of the changes of the muscular
tissue of the heart is very great. It is always
acting, and consequently new tissue is con-
tinually being formed to take the place of that
which wears away. This is why the bioplasts
are so abundant in the particular specimen of
muscular tissue which I have selected for illus-
trating these remarks concerning the impor-
tance of bioplasm.

At an early period of development, the heart
was represented by a collection of spherical
bioplasts situated close to one another. These
divided and sub-divided until a considerable
mass had been formed. Some bioplasts were
concerned in the formation of muscle, others
were to produce nerve, and from others connec-
tive tissue only was to be developed. But at this

$8 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

early period all these bioplasts were spherical,
all had been formed by division and sub-division
from the same original bioplasm mass. The
nerve bioplasm cannot by any means known be
distinguished from the bioplasm to take part in
the formation of muscle, or either of them from
connective tissue bioplasm. Nor was there at
this early period, when the basis tissue of the
heart was being formed, a vestige of muscular or
nervous tissue. There was the living matter,
by which alone the formation of such tissues
is possible, but that was all. As development
advances, however, the little bioplasts move
away from one another, and in their wake, or
in the interval between them, tissue makes its
appearance. In this process the matter of the
bioplast is changed, it loses its powers of growth
and multiplication, and acquires the form and
properties of tissue. But only part of the
living matter undergoes this change. The bio-
plast does not disappear ; it continues to take
up nourishment and convert this into bioplasm,
and at this early period of life, faster even than
its substance undergoes conversion into tissue.
Thus the loss of bioplasm by transformation
into tissue is more than compensated by the

PHYSICAL AND VITAL PHENOMENA. 39

absorption of nourishment and the production
of new bioplasm. These two processes, the
formation of tissue by bioplasm, and the pro-
duction of new bioplasm by the appropriation
of nutritive matters, proceed at the same time.
What physical or chemical operation yet dis-
covered can be compared with these nutritive
and formative processes ? Between the two
sets of phenomena, physical and vital, not the
faintest analogy can be shown to exist. The
idea of a particle of muscular or nerve tissue
being formed by a process akin to crystallisa-
tion, appears ridiculous to anyone who has
studied the phenomena, or who is acquainted
with the structure of these tissues. It is dif-
ficult to conceive how anyone who had thought
over the facts, which are well known to every
working student of physiology, could have suc-
ceeded in so misleading himself and others, as
even to hint that the formation of tissue of any
kind could be explained by physics and chem-
istry. There is not the shadow of argument
founded upon fact, or upon the results of obser-
vation, to give countenance to such a doctrine.
The idea that the ultimate molecules of living
matter arrange themselves, or are arranged, by

4-0 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

virtue of the properties of the molecules them-
selves in such a manner that tissue results, is
supported by argument of about the same
degree of importance as that which might be
urged in favour of the theory that St. Paul's
and Westminster Abbey resulted from the pro-
perties of the stones of which those edifices
are built.

But further, it will be observed in the drawing
that the fibres of the muscular tissue interlace,
and that the fibres of the nerves interlace with
one another and with the muscular fibres in a
most intricate manner. It appears that there is
a certain proportion of nerve tissue to muscular
tissue, which is constant for each particular kind
of muscular tissue only. The nerve fibres form
an uninterrupted network which exhibits no
endings, which is everywhere distinct from the
muscular tissue, but the fibres of which cross
the muscular fibres at frequent intervals, and
are sometimes very close to them. Will any
one venture to affirm that the arrangement
which is delineated in the drawings, and which
can be demonstrated in many specimens, is to
be accounted for by physics and chemistry ?
If so, let him make the attempt, let him adduce

NERVE FIBRES COMPOUND. 4 1

reasons for the conclusion that the Sun, or force,
or matter of any kind, could develop a particle
of nerve or muscle, and show that there is
some ground for the dictum, " the Sun forms
the heart." But if this cannot be done it is
time that those who with so little consideration
have supported this outrageous assertion should
withdraw it, and admit candidly that the heart
is not formed by the Sun.

But, so far, we have only instituted a very
superficial examination of the beautiful and
delicate texture which constitutes the auricle of
the froe's heart. We have not considered a
tithe of the interesting facts presented for our
contemplation by the study of this muscular
and nervous tissue. Every nerve fibre is itself
compound, and when we come to examine it
under higher powers, with the aid of the advan-
tages we now possess as regards methods of
preparation, we discover that the finest fibres
are resolved into still finer fibres, and it is
doubtful if we can obtain a view of an ultimate
nerve fibre, or if indeed it exists. Moreover,
the fine nerves do not lie parallel to one
another in the ramifications, but they interlace
and coil spirally round one another ; a fibre on

42 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

the right of a compound fibre crosses over to
the left, and then again traverses the branch to
reach the opposite side, and so on through the
whole length of the fine nerve fibres. This
arrangement is constant in all nerves, and is
observed in large trunks as well as in the finest
ramifications. Will anyone believe that a fact
so constant is meaningless, a result of accident
to be explained by subtle influences, or natural
selection ? Shall we account for the fact by
attributing it to the operation of a physico-spiral
tendency, or dismiss it with the announcement
that the law of nerve reticulation will be dis-
covered ere long ? But it is marvellous how
difficult it is even to obtain assent to an impor-
tant but simple fact of observation of this
kind. Every student who has dissected a
nerve knows that the nerve fibrils cross and
intertwine in the trunk. A low magnifying
power only is required to convince him that the
same fact is observed in the smaller trunks.
Careful examination of properly prepared speci-
mens will prove that the disposition is the same
in still more minute ramifications ; and I possess
numerous preparations in which the same point
may be demonstrated in the most minute nerve

ARRANGEMENT OF NERVE FIBRES. 43

ramifications we can see under the highest
powers yet made (the -^ and ■£$ magnifying
respectively 1,800 and 2,800 diameters). The
arrangement in question is represented in a
great number of my drawings published during
the last thirteen years. And yet some of the
most careful observers seem unacquainted with
the fact, and not aware that attention has been
directed to it. In truth they contradict obser-
vations, the correctness of which can be put to
the test by the examination of a good specimen
in five minutes.""

* Some elaborate and otherwise very correct drawings in
the very last number of Max Schultze's " Archiv," are
defective in this particular. In the very large drawings the
nerve fibres composing the fine compound ramifications are
represented by parallel lines ("Die Flughaut der Fledermause,
namentlich die Endigung ihrer Nerven," von Dr. Jos.
Schobl, in Prag. Siebenter Band, Erstes. Heft, 1870). This
paper is a very valuable one, and is particularly interesting
to me, inasmuch as the author confirms many of my own
observations concerning the ultimate distribution of nerve
fibres, which were made several years ago, and were at that
time discredited in Germany. The networks of fine fibres
described and figured in several of my papers, and illus-
trated in Plates I and II of this essay, are represented by
Schobl in three colours over a very extensive surface of
tissue. The authors delineation of the distribution of
nerves to muscle also accords with my own. Dr. Schobl will,

44 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

How is this wonderful interlacement and
intertwining of fine nerve fibres, of larger nerve
fibres, and of the largest compound trunks, in
every part of the periphery, and in every
central nerve organ, to be accounted for by any
physical hypothesis ? No such arrangement can
be brought about artificially, except by the
interweaving of threads which have been
formed or spun in the first instance, and we
know that this is not the manner in which the
nerve trunks and plexuses are produced, for
such a process is rendered impossible by the
conditions under which the formation of nerve
fibres proceeds in living beings. By admitting
vital power, it is, however, possible to account
for the phenomenon without ignoring any of
the facts which can be demonstrated during the
course of development ; but the question is too
extensive to consider in this place.

We have, however, as yet only subjected our

I am sure, excuse me for making these remarks upon his
recent work. By criticising each other's observations in
such particulars, we shall promote that exactness and care
in recording observations, and making drawings, which so
surely promotes the true advancement of that department
of science in which we labour.

FORMATION OF TISSUE. 45

specimen to a very incomplete examination,
and have found that physics will not fully
account for any of the facts revealed by observa-
tion. I might further describe the wonderful
structure of the beautiful ganglion cells repre-
sented in Plate I and Plate II, figs. 2 and 3,
by which the rythmic contraction of the mus-
cular fibres is effected, and with which the
nerve fibres are continuous, but by so doing I
should probably tire the reader with too many
minute details. The conclusion, however,
already deduced would again be arrived at, —
that neither the structure, nor the arrangement,
nor the position, nor connections of these
little nerve organs could be accounted for by
physics, nor their composition or action ex-
plained by chemistry. Not even the connec-
tive-tissue-corpuscles have been formed by
force, nor do they grow or act by physics and
chemistry.

Every particle of tissue, represented in the
drawings, is the result of changes which have
occurred in previously existing living matter.
VThe evidence of the origin of the tissue is as
distinct and certain as that which leads us to
conclude that the formation of the lifeless shell

46 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

cast upon the seashore, is due to changes
effected during the life of a living- animal.

The action of such tissues as nerve and
muscle is determined by their structure and
composition, which are a direct consequence of
the influence of vital power upon the particles
of matter of which they consist. We cannot,
therefore, show even that the action of these
tissues is due to physical and chemical changes
only, for not only is the action dependent upon
the structure, but the maintenance of the struc-
ture in a state fit for action is effected by the
living matter, or bioplasm, which exists in
greater or less proportion, and is .more or less
active during every moment throughout life.

But if any advocate of the physical doctrine
thinks I have unfairly selected a highly complex
structure for the express purpose of bringing
out too strongly the objections to his favourite
hypothesis, let him select some simpler tissue,
and explain if he can its formation according
to his own views. Nay, if it be preferred, let
the phenomena of the simplest living organism
in existence be taken as the subject for dis-
cussion. It seems to me clear that facts
are more favourable to the vital than to the

PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY OF DISEASE. 47

physical hypothesis of life. Neither physicist
nor chemist can explain by physics and che-
mistry the increase in size, or the division and
sub-division of the tiniest monad, or the lowest
microscopic fungus. It is time that his inca-
pacity to do so were distinctly admitted and
definitely acknowledged, and that persons un-
learned in the details of life science should no
longer be encouraged in the belief that living
things are force-constructed mechanisms, and
that life has been evolved from ordinary matter
in which there was no life.

Next, let me inquire if the facts so familiar

to us who are daily brought face to face with

the various remarkable changes occurring in

the tissues of man's body in disease are to be

explained by physics and chemistry. It would

surely be difficult to find remarks having any

pretension to scientific accuracy more pitiful

than many of those which have been advanced

as physical and chemical explanations of the

phenomena of disease. To fully explain

any disease whatever by mechanics must be

impossible, unless the phenomena of health are

also susceptible of mechanical explanation.

What can be more vague and inconclusive than

48 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

the chemical theories which have been offered
as " explanations " of the phenomena of fever
and inflammation ? In cases in which the
patient is dying of suffocation, when one lung
has ceased altogether to breathe and the other
is almost obstructed, we are told that, never-
theless, the fever depends upon increased oxi-
dation. If the temperature rises, as it does in
some cases many degrees, after death has oc-
curred, and continues to rise for some hours
after heart and lungs have ceased to act, we are
expected to assent to the dictum that the fact
is due to increased oxidation. But it is obvious
that rise in temperature in such cases is asso-
ciated with diminished, instead of increased,
access of oxygen, and the chemical theory of
animal heat can only be accepted if the most
important of the well established facts be ig-
nored. In the same way mechanics and che-
mistry utterly fail to explain the phenomena of
an ordinary cold, or a common headache. The
effects of a sting, or those following the bite
of a gnat, or a flea, no more can be accounted
for by physics or chemistry than those resulting
from the poison of the rattlesnake or cobra, or
from the introduction into the system of a few

VITALITY OF DISEASE GERMS. 49

drops of hydrocyanic acid, a little strychnia, or
the fraction of a grain of nicotina.

Then there are the marvellous but familiar
facts in connection with contagious, self-pro-
pagating diseases." Is the poisoned dissecting
wound a mere chemical or mechanico-chemical
phenomenon ? To what chemical actions does
it exhibit the slightest analogy ? and who feels
satisfied when he is told that the speck of
vaccine lymph is but a bit of albumen in a state
of rapid chemical change, which induces che-
mical change in the fluids and tissues of the
body ? This sort of phrase is often advanced
in place of explanation, but not one of the
terms of the proposition has any intelligible
meaning attached to it. The whole question
is begged, and it is expected that the inquirer
will be silenced by the learned words which, in
his innocence, he may fancy must have some
deep or mysterious meaning that his poor in-
telligence does not comprehend, or his too
scanty knowledge enable him to interpret. Can
the changes in one of the little mucus corpuscles
from the mucus of the throat be explained by
physics, or the movements of the white blood
* See " Disease Germs, their Real Nature," 187 1.

E

50 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

corpuscle, or the growth of pus by chemistry ?
Does the poison of measles differ from that of
small-pox chemically or mechanically, or in
some other way ? Is the escape of one indi-
vidual and the invasion of another to be ac-
counted for upon mechanical principles, or has
the poison a chemical affinity for one, and an
instinctive antipathy to another ?

In a common cold there is increase of living
matter, but, like the fact, the substance has
\ been ignored by physicists, chemists, and the
/chemico-mechanical school of medicine. The
increase of living matter occurs in all fevers
and inflammations, but by the chemist this fact is
neither admitted nor recognized. The doctrine
of correlation will not assist us in interpreting
the phenomena. There is not a disease in
which it cannot be shown that vital, as distinct
from physical and chemical, changes are at work.
Every remedial measure we employ does good
or harm in brinoinor about conditions which are

o o

favourable or unfavourable to the growth and
multiplication of such soft, transparent, semi-
fluid, living, moving matter, quite irrespective
of any merely mechanical or chemical influence
it may exert.

ORGANISM NOT A FORCE-SYSTEM. 5 1

Physiology and medicine are not branches
of physics, and, like many other departments
of human knowledge, cannot be comprised in
mechanical philosophy. If the facts of health
and disease could have been explained by
chemistry and mechanics we should have had
the explanation long ago. It is now quite
time that chemists and physicists admitted
their inability to account for them, and ceased
to exhibit hostility towards those who refer
the phenomena peculiar to living beings to
the influence of vital power until some suffi-
cient physical explanation shall have been given.
At present no one who uses his reason rightly
can admit that the facts of the case justify him
in looking upon his organism, or any other
organism, as a mere force system, the normal
equilibrium of which may be somehow me-
chanically or chemically disturbed in disease —
as a clock crystallised from its mother liquor,
having the property of ticking monotonously
for a time, capable of receiving a new wheel
or spring if either be broken or lost, but when
damaged by dirt or rust, or worn out by age,
good for nought but to be cast into the melting-
pot, where its " properties " become " modified,"

e 2

52 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

its structure destroyed, and its individuality
discharged for ever.

After having: been educated to ignore half
the facts of existence and abandon all the hopes,
it is possible people might be persuaded to
believe that all the phenomena of life and of
man are fully accounted for by physics and the
doctrine of the conversion of force. But by a
special course of instruction only could the mind
be prepared for the acceptance of the view that
the construction of the most elaborate organism,
the marvellous acts performed by it, the ca-
pricious vacillations of the lowest human will, as
well as the grandest creations of the most perfect
human intellect, are but indications of the quiver-
ing oscillations of a force wave, the varying
intensity of which is determined by the ever-
changing conditions occasioned by its own
eternal undulation. But inaccurate generaliza-
tion and vague assertion have been carried still
further. It is gravely contended by some that
our part of the universe is undergoing degrada-
tion which must progress, and that, in conse-
quence, life on our globe will ere long cease.
The fire of the Sun, the great preparer of our
food(!), as well as the builder of our tissues, is,

VITALITY A MYSTERY. 53

we are told, gradually going out, and, unless
more fuel is supplied to compensate for the
excess of expenditure over income, there is no
hope for life. But after having dilated upon the
colossal physical changes which certainly will
lead to the extinction of all life, our teachers
next admit that we have yet much to learn
concerning the data upon which is grounded
this definitely stated opinion that life will cease,
&c. ; in short, that the portentous conclusions
they have themselves deliberately deduced
are, after all, but mere conjectures, which are
certainly not supported by any facts of science
yet discovered. Nor can the physicist adduce
reasons for supposing that it is at all likely that
within the next century the facts required to
justify the expression of these and other recently
evolved fancies will be at his command.

Dr. Gull, like many who disapprove of the
vital theory, admits that he cannot fully ex-
plain vital phenomena. Vitality is, then, after
all, a mystery. But some of us are convinced of
the truth of facts which justify us in concluding
that the mystery is to be accounted for only by
supposing an agency, force, or power of an
order different from that in which the forces of

54 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

the non-living world are included ; while others
maintain that life will eventually prove to be
but another mode of the ordinary forces of
matter. For my part, I am ready to abandon
altogether the idea of vitality, and to dismiss it
with other ideas, considered by the new school as
mere prejudices imbibed during the irresponsible
state of childhood, as soon as convincing evi-
dence of error shall be adduced ; but I refuse
to give up these for the threats or gibes of a
school whose tenets rest upon the mere autho-
rity of modern assertion, and whose forcible
dicta, however determined and arrogant, are
justified neither by reason, nor by observation,
nor by experiment.

There is a mystery in life. A mystery which
has never been fathomed, and which appears
greater the more deeply the phenomena of life
are studied and contemplated. In living centres,
far more central than the centre as seen by the
highest magnifying powers — in centres of living
matter where the eye cannot penetrate, but
towards which the understanding may tend, —
proceed changes of the nature of which the
most advanced physicists and chemists fail to
afford us the faintest conception. Nor is there

VITAL PLASTICITY. 55

the sliehtest reason to think that the nature of
these changes will ever be ascertained by phy-
sical investigation, inasmuch as they are cer-
tainly of an order or nature totally distinct
from that to which any other phenomena known
to us can be relegated.

Lastly, it may be well to consider if our own
will, feelings, thoughts, emotions, hopes, desires,
can be expressed in force terms, or measured
by force standards. We are told that the
nervous tissue is highly plastic, the plasticity
being no doubt due to the property of the
" clay " of which it is made, by virtue of which
" it is not only capable of receiving and regis-
tering the impressions made upon it, but of
acquiring an instinct for complicated acts" and
this, Dr. Gull tells us, is " the physical basis of
education and of even morals !" Now where, I
would ask, is the lifeless clay, the inanimate
plastic substance, which acquires an instinct ?
Does not this very " plasticity " of the nervous
system, so different from the " plasticity " of
inorganic substances, remove it at once from
the category of the non-living ? But nerve-
plasticity may be yet another undiscovered
correlate of clay-plasticity, and both of them

56 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

but converted primary energy ; in which case
morals may be regarded as the outcome of a
highly plastic physical basis.

The organs of the senses receive physical
impressions. But how does this fact give any
support to the conclusion that these organs are
themselves the result of mere physical and
chemical changes ? The ear or the eye formed
by physics, because one distinguishes the vi-
brations of sound and the other those of light !
Now, that such views should be entertained at
all is but evidence that he who holds them is
not acquainted with the structure of these
wonderful organs. It is most unreasonable
on the part of any one to allow such an opinion
to pass current so long as the steps by which
the arrangement of the simplest nerve plexus,
which we can demonstrate easily enough
(Plate I), was brought about, continue unknown,
nay, while the actual mode of arrangement,
and termination of the nerves in the simplest
terminal nervous organ is admitted to be doubt-
ful. But while there is so much yet to be
discovered as regards the mere structure of the
simplest nervous mechanism, what must we say
of those who profess to be able to tell us the

EVOLUTION. 5 7

precise nature of the actions of the highest
parts ? Without being able to give us an idea
of the structure and arrangement of the appa-
ratus, they do not hesitate to assure us that its
action is mechanical and chemical, and that the
marvellous thinking instrument, whose intri-
cacies have never been unravelled, is merely
plastic matter, formified from its solution after
the manner of the deposition of a crystal from
its mother-liquor.

Man, as well as man's brain, we have been
told, is formed by " evolution." His organs
result from " evolution," and the higher mental
faculties with which he is endowed, like the
instrument of which these are the supposed
function, are " evolved " from the more simple.
So that a complex structure may be " evolved"
from a simpler structure, and a complex action
from a more simple action.

But " evolution," like many other terms em-
ployed in the science of our day for the purpose
of accounting for phenomena, has had no de-
finite meaning assigned to it. To say that a
thing has been formed by "evolution " conveys
information less definite and less correct than is
conveyed by the statement that it has been

58 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

derived from a pre-existing living thing. The
formation of tissue has been attributed to
" vacuolation " and " differentiation," and these
polysyllables have lately been superseded by
the still more vague terms " subtle influences,"
and " external conditions," and " sundry circum-
stances." And it has been affirmed that to " the
primitive properties of the molecules" and
" natural selection " may be referred all the
varying forms and structures known to us as
well as all the phenomena of the living world.
But such terms explain nothing. By their use
further enquiry is discouraged, and the mind
bent upon investigating the secrets of nature is
misled at the very outset. Can any one of
these very pretentious phrases be resolved into
anything more than the statement of a fact or
facts in the form and language of an explana-
tion ? Natural selection is the formation of
species, and species are produced by natural
selection. Crystallisation is the formation of
crystals, and crystals are produced by the opera-
tion of crystallisation. Tissues are formed by
differentiation, and differentiation is the forma-
tion of tissues ; and so on. But whether forma-
tion be attributed to " subtle influences " and

MAN " A BEING APART. 59

" sundry circumstances," or to evil influences,
witchcraft, or the influence of fairies, can
surely be of very little consequence. By such
explanations, especially if conveyed very em-
phatically, and with authority, the unlearned
may be astonished, and pleased, and confused,
and imposed upon, but those who put forward
such explanations do not convey information,
and instead of promoting the advance of natural
knowledge they retard real progress.

Dr. Gull, with many more, at present shrinks
from regarding mind as correlated force, and
therefore does not at this time look upon man
as a mere mechanism. But unless it shall be
shown exactly where the lower forms of life
are marked off from the higher, this is a posi-
tion obviously untenable. The man-germ has
no more mind than the dog^-germ or the cab-
bage-germ. At what period of development,
then, according to the view above referred to,
does the man-germ become distinct from all
other beings, and acquire those properties which
make man " a being apart ? " At what period
of his being is that " immeasurable and im-
passable gulf " excavated, which is supposed to
separate him so decidedly from the rest of

60 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

creation, and by what method of investigation is
the gulf to be rendered evident to the senses ?

On the other hand, mind itself is, by many
who understand the force of logical reasoning,
considered to be but the result of molecular
changes in nervous matter, and the arrange-
ment of this nervous matter is supposed to
result from the operation of certain complex
conditions. Chemical action, it is held, may be
convertible into mind, just as heat is con-
vertible into electricity or motion. Only the
conditions required to bring about the first
conversion are much more complex than those
by which the other may be effected. Memory,
it may be said, — nay, it has been said, — is but
the capacity to register the effects of impres-
sions, which nervous matter enjoys in common
with every organic element, and certain inor-
ganic matters, including stones and crystals!
Nor is there a faculty of the mind which cannot
be disposed of in the same way. Force forms
the brain, which converts force into mind.

But in all these notions the act of formation,
the cause of formation, and action after forma-
tion is complete, are confused together. It is
held that the organ which changes force has itself

MIND NOT FORCE. 6 1

been constructed by force. Force is conditioned
by the apparatus it has built up. Force is the
architect, the director, the builder, and force is
afterwards directed, changed, and modified by
the working of the machinery it has designed,
constructed, and made. Force is that which con-
ditions, and that which is conditioned. Force
forms the instrument which correlates and is
correlated by it. It is at one time that which
produces the correlating apparatus, and at an-
other is itself correlated by the results of its
own constructive power. The constructor is a
correlative of the work performed by the me-
chanism he has produced. The artificer, the
machine, and the work done by the machine,
are then all correlative !

But does not " life " exist before brain and
nerves, the instruments of mind, are formed ?
If then "life," which manifests itself in man's
organism before mind is evolved, which some-
times exists independently of mind, but without
which mind could not exist, be a correlate of
heat, it must be a correlate very different from
mind. The difference, it will be said, is due to
the difference of the molecular machinery which
effects the conditioning of the forces. But the

62 THE xMYSTERY OF LIFE.

machinery has been formed by force, so that
we must assume that there is not one new cor-
relative of motion, life, to be discovered and
produced anew in the laboratory ; but others, of
which mind takes the precedence. For the
transformation of primary energy into mind,
life is necessary, for life invariably precedes
mind. Life may be manifested without mind,
but the manifestation of mind without life is im-
possible, even in the conception of the physicist.

It is in the present state of knowledge
simply astounding, that reasonable people
should accept the dogma that life is a correla-
tive of heat. There is not more than the
shadow of foundation for such a view. But that
mind should also be received as another corre-
late, only proves that few persons think about
the mental actions going on in their own or-
ganisms, and that dogmatic assertion of one
kind is as powerful to influence them as was
that of another kind to mislead their fore-
fathers.

Those who do not go quite so far, but aro-ue
concerning the possibility of life being a corre-
late of ordinary force, should bear in mind that
nothing can result from the mere assertion that

PLATK 11.

THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

£

A portion of the same specimen as that figured in plate I, magnified 700 diameters, showing the
relation ot the masses of bioplasm to the nerve and muscular fibres, which have been formed
them. Ore ive tissue corpuscles are also represented.

Fis(. -2.

Ganglion cells. Showing straight and
spiral nerve fibres, and their course, in
opposite directions, in the trunk of the
nerve. The bioplasm of the ganglion
fells and nerve fibres is also shown.
From the hy!a or green-tree frog. X 700.

Ganglion cells and nerve fibres
with thebioplasm -which has taken
part in their formation. An
arrangement similar to that repre-
sented in this drawing and in
Fig. 2 ia seen upon all the n
distributed to the heart, lungs,
hver, kidneys, and intesl
From the newt. X 130. p. 45

Xann Of all lllCh

>

,

[ r/o face j a

PROPHECIES. 6

->

vital force may be another form or mode of heat
or motion, unless facts and arguments can be
advanced in support of the supposed possibility.
The assertion has been repeated hundreds of
times, but the arguments which have been ad-
duced hitherto, have been shown to rest upon
no secure foundation. At the same time I
I would say, " By all means let the idea of vital
power be upset, for once and for all, if this can
be done." I hold it because I cannot escape
from it, because the facts I know, cannot be
explained without the hypothesis.

The most sanguine physicists are perfectly sure
that thought and life itself will some day (!) be
summarily transformed into a new undiscovered
correlate by the might of unthinking force.
This is to happen as soon as the proper struc-
ture of the conditioning machinery, which is to
effect the change, shall have been determined,
and this is to be effected by force which is at the
same time condition, conditioned, and correlate.
But so far the transformation of life into force,
or force into life, has not been effected. Nor has
any one yet succeeded in showing that the ful-
filment of this possibility is near at hand, or
that it receives support from any newly dis-

64 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

covered facts, or recently conducted observa-
tions or experiments. I am quite ready to be
taught^ but I cannot submit to he. forced \\\X.o
confusion by force, while I retain vital power to
resist. During the last twelve years numerous
facts, elucidated in the course of careful micro-
scopical investigations on the tissues of plants
and animals, which have not been called in
question, tend to establish upon a firm basis the
doctrine of " vitality ; " or at the least indicate
that the phenomena peculiar to living beings
are due to the working of some special power
capable of guiding, and directing, and arranging
ordinary matter, but in no way emanating from,
or correlated with, the ordinary material forces.
I cannot but conclude from my investigations
that the living is separated from the non-living
by an impassable barrier — by a gulf that will
not soon be bridged over ; that matter and
its ordinary forces and properties belong to
one category or order ; and that creative power,
and will, design, and mind, and life, ought to be
included in a very different order indeed.

In conclusion, I submit that the arguments
advanced by Dr. Gull, and others, do not show
that the opinion that life " is a power entirely

VITALITY. 65

different from, and in no way correlated with,
matter and its ordinary forces," is untenable.
Neither can it be held that the reasoning
advanced by him in any way justifies the accept-
ance of the hypothesis that life is correlated
force. This physical doctrine restricts advance
and retards scientific progress. It cannot be
accepted without straining, to a degree quite
unwarrantable, arguments which are based upon
conjectures instead of facts, and denying or
ignoring many well authenticated facts which
have resulted from numerous observations, and
can be confirmed without difficulty. On the
other hand, the theory of " vitality" helps us
to explain many phenomena otherwise inex-
plicable at this time, while it is not incompati-
ble with any of the truths of physical science.

66 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

The Physical Nature of Vital Energy.

The following observations were published
in the " British Medical Journal," October 29th,
1870, in answer to some remarks made by Dr.
Ferrier in favour of the physical doctrine of life
and against my views on vitality: —

The conviction that it is " only by recognising
the physical nature of vital energy that we can
ever hope to establish therapeutics on a firm
and sound basis," has perhaps led Dr. Ferrier"""
to express himself rather decidedly against some
views which I ventured to put forward some
years ago, but which I am ready to give' up as
soon as convincing evidence shall be adduced
in favour of the physical doctrine of life.

If Dr. Ferrier will explain what is meant by
" molecular organization" and "molecular
machinery," he will serve the cause he has at
heart far better than by attacking me ; for, as
he must have gathered from many of my
remarks, I am quite as anxious for light as any
one can be. What I desire is to learn in what

* Introductory Lecture on Life, &c. ("British Medical
Journal," October 22nd.)

VITAL MODE OF FORCE. 67

particulars the "living" resembles and differs
from the "non-living" I am quite ready to
admit that one living thing is only some other
living thing, or dead thing, or non-living thing,
" variously modified " " under sundry circum-
stances," by " subtle influence ;" but I should
certainly like to have the meaning of these very
ambiguous phrases explained. A man may
be said to be only dust " variously modified ;"
but consider what is comprised in the " variously
modified ! ': And perhaps I may be permitted
to ask why, if it is right to attribute the mar-
vellous phenomena of nutrition to " subtle
influences," am I to be condemned because I
prefer to employ provisionally the simple term
" life," or " vitality," or " vital power" ?

It is possible the "molecular machinery"
which is supposed to condition the physical
force and convert it into the vital mode may be
discovered ; but at present it is absolutely un-
known. It has never been seen, and no one
has yet told us what it looks like even in his
imagination.

But I will admit that it is possible such
machinery may be beyond the microscopic limit.
The imagination of highly gifted persons may

f 2

68 THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

be able to conceive the structure and mode of
action of the molecular machinery of the exist-
ence of which they are perfectly certain,
although it has not yet been rendered evident
even to their sense. Nay, I will admit further,
that a sufficient intelligence might be able to
predict, from the properties of its component
parts, the character which the offspring of any
given piece of " molecular machinery " will
assume after it has continued to grow and mul-
tiply, say for a thousand years. But do such
suggestions enable us to unravel the mystery of
the life of even the simplest thing now alive,
or to determine in what particulars a living
particle differs from the same particle dead ; or
why a portion of a mass of living matter moves
upwards as well as downwards, or in what
manner it takes up non-living matter, and com-
municates to this its own properties, and divides
into separate portions, every one of which pos-
sesses equal powers ? It may be answered, —
" These phenomena are due to the properties of
the molecular machinery which has long been
known to exist in the imaginations of highly
gifted persons ; and, although as yet no one
has succeeded in actually producing such

MACHINES AND LIVING MATTER. 69

machinery artificially, the efforts of the philo-
sophic imagination tend towards such a con-
summation !" But surely no observer, no
worker at science, will feel satisfied with such
statements as these ; and a few will probably
agree with me in thinking that, although it be
in a sense /^philosophical, it is neither incon-
sistent nor absurd, to entertain the opinion that
the vital phenomena of living matter, which was
derived from pre-existing living matter, are due
to a peculiar power. At the same time I object
to accept the view that the action of a steam-
engine, which was not produced by a pre-exist-
ing steam-engine, is due to a " steam-engine
principle ;" and I confess it appears to me very
extraordinary that many advocates of the
physical theory of life cannot be convinced that
the analogy they draw between a machine —
which does not make itself, or grow, or multiply
— rand living matter, which seems to do all these
things, is so very slight as to be beyond every
limit except that of the fancy. If those who
support the view which Dr. Ferrier so strongly
advocates could explain by physics and chem-
istry (a) the movements, (b) the growth, and (c)
the division of any particle of living matter of

JO THE MYSTERY OF LIFE.

any organism in this world, they might have
some excuse for the very positive statements
they make about the physical theory of life.
But they have not explained these things, and
they know they are not to be explained by
physics.

People are beginning to doubt whether, after
all, living things are really so like machines and
crystals and physical bases, and complex albu-
minoid matters in a state of rapid chemical
change, as they have been led by the disciples
of the new philosophy to believe them to be.
And people are also beginning to doubt if those
who have spoken so positively on the physical
side really know much more than any one else
knows about the nature of life ; although, from
their very decided manner, it was natural to
believe they possessed very peculiar and perfect
knowledge of the secret.

Whether the physical theory of life would
have resisted much better the "furious on-
slaughts" that have been made against it, if
some other course had been pursued, is a matter
of opinion ; but it is quite certain that some of
the strongest supporters of the doctrine are
modifying their views, and are preparing to

LIVING THINGS NOT MACHINES. 7 1

modify them still further. Those who have
watched for ten minutes, under a high magni-
fying power, the varied movements of living
matter, and have thought a little over the ques-
tion of the nutrition of that living- matter, will
not easily be brought to believe that such
phenomena are due to physical and chemical
changes only. The number of such observers
increases daily.

HARRISON and Sons, Printers in Ordinary to Her Majesty, St. Martin's Lane.

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Beale, Lionel Smith
The mystery of life

Bio Med