Page:Life and death (1911).djvu/240

 destruction of a reserve-stuff (and perhaps of a small quantity of the living substance) precedes and conditions the formation of a greater quantity of this living matter—in other words, the growth of the protoplasm of the organ.

Contradictions in the New Theory.—Moreover, these mistakes involve those who make them in a series of inextricable contradictions. Here, for example, is life; it is found, they say, in three forms:—Life manifested, or condition 1º; latent life, or condition 3º. So far this is the classical theory; but they add a condition 2º, which is what might be called ''pathological or incomplete life''. This is defined by the following characteristic:—That its functional phenomena are identical with those in the first form, but that they are not accompanied by assimilation and by protoplasmic growth, But since, they say, growth is the chemical consequence of the functional activity, since it is so to speak its metabolic aspect, since it is confused with it, and inseparable from it, by the argument—then it is contradictory and logically absurd to speak of condition 2º. It would be acknowledging in the case of the anucleated merozoite, for example, a functional activity unaccompanied by assimilation, yet identical with the functional activity which is accompanied by assimilation in the nucleated merozoite. The general movement, that of the cilia, the taking of food, the evacuation of the fæces, the contraction of the pulsatile vacuoles, are the same. And this fact is the best proof that this vital functional activity (with the organic destruction which is its energetic source) must be distinguished from the assimilation which usually follows it, and which in exceptional cases may not follow it.