Page:Life and death (1911).djvu/269

 CHAPTER III.

ORGANIZATION AND CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF LIVING AND BRUTE MATTER.

Laws of the organization and of the chemical composition of living beings—Relative value of these laws; vital phenomena in crushed protoplasm—Vital phenomena in brute bodies.

Enumeration of the Principal Characters of Living Beings.—The programme which we have just sketched compels us to look in the brute being for the properties of living beings. What, then, are, in fact, the characteristics of an authentic, complete, living being? What are its fundamental properties? We have enumerated them above as follows:—A certain chemical composition, which is that of living matter; a structure or organization; a specific form; an evolution which has a duration, that of life, and an end, death; a property of growth or nutrition; a property of reproduction. Which of these characters counts for most in the definition of life? Are they all equally necessary? If some of them were wanting, would that justify the transference of a being, who might possess the rest, from the animate world to that of minerals? This is precisely the question that is under consideration.

Organization and Chemical Composition of Living Beings.—All that we know concerning the constitution