OCR Text |
Show 16 THE PRESENT CONDITION Thus we come to the conclusion, strange at first sight, that the MATTER constituting the living world is identical with that which forms the inorganic world. And not less true is it that, remarkable as are the powers or, in other words, as are the FoRCES which are exerted by living beings, yet all these forces are either identical with those which exist in the inorganic world, or they are convertible into them; I mean in just the same sense as the researches of physical philosopher" have shown that heat is convertible into electricity, that electricity is convertible into magnetism, magnetism into mechanical force or chemical force, and any one of them with the other, each being measurable in terms of the other,-even so, I say, that great law i applicable to the living world. Consider why is th skeleton of this horse capable of supporting the masses of flesh and the various organs forming the living body, unless it is because of the action of the same forces of cohesion which combines together the particles of matter composing this piece of chalk? What is there in the muscular contractile power of the animal but the force which is expressible, and which is in a certain sense convertible, into the force of gravity which it overcomes? Or, if you go to more hidden processes, in what does the process of digestion differ from those processes which are carried on in the laboratory of the chemist ? Even if we take the most recondite and most complex operations of animal life-those of the nervous system, these of late years have been shown to be-I do not say identical in any sense with the electrical proce~ses-but this has been shown, that they are in some way or other associated with them; that is to OF ORGANIC NATURE. 17 say, that every amount of nervous action is accompanied by a certain amount of electrical disturbance in the particles of the nerves in which that nervous action is carried on. In this way the nervous action is related to electricity in the same way that heat is related to electricity; and the same sort of argument which demonstrates the two latter to be related to one another shows that the nervous forces are correlated to electricity; for the experiments of M. Dubois Reymond and others have shown that whenever a nerve is in a state of excitement, sending a message to the muscles or~ conveying an impression to the brain, there is a disturbance of the electrical condition of that nerve which does not exist at other times; and there are a number of other facts and phenomena of that sort; so that we come to the broad conclusion that not only as to living matter itself, but as to the forces that matter exerts, there is a close relationship between the organic and the inorganic world-the difference between them arising from the diverse combination and disposition of identical forces, and not from any primary diversity, so far as we can see. I said just now that the Horse eventually died and became converted into the same inorganic substances from whence all but an inappreciable fraction of its substance demonstrably originated, so that the actual wanderings of ·matter are as remarkable as the transmigrations of the soul fabled by Indian tradition. But before death has occurred, in the one sex or the other, and in fact in both, certain products or parts of the organism have been set free, certain parts of the organisms of the two sexes have come into contact |