Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/138

122 validity. Penal law in all countries is on the verge of a collapse, and the whole idea of punishment in the sense of inflicting evil ought to be abandoned.

This is a criticism of an article published by Preyer in the Naturwissenschaftliche Wochenschrift of the 8th of last March under the title, " The law of the conservation of life." P. had sought to prove that life, like matter and energy, is indestructible. "Vita non evanescit." If we let Mz represent the actually living matter in the universe, and Mn represent that which is not living, we have the formula Mz + Mn = Constant. The inert matter contains, among other things, food for living beings. It is evident that the more food there is, the more will life increase, and as extreme development of living beings leads to death, i.e. to the augmentation of the inert matter, P. holds that the variations between the amount of the active and inert matter are proportional, or that $Ms⁄Mn$ = K. Since living matter is nothing but protoplasm, the author formulates his law as follows: "the total quantity of living protoplasm is invariable."

Errara asks what meaning can be given to this law of the conservation of life. It is only necessary to pour some strong acid into an aquarium to destroy all life there present without any new life coming into being as a necessary result. The error in P.'s reasoning, our author points out, consists in the fact that the symbol Mz, in the two equations given above, does not represent the same thing. In the first equation, Mz and Mn stand for the living and inert matter existing at a precise moment. In the other, the variations do not take place simultaneously, but one follows the other, and comes unto being at its expense. At each instant, then, the variations of Mz and Mn, instead of being proportional, are the inverse of each other. Again, geology tells us that the earth has passed through an azoic period. P., however, postulates the eternity of life. When the world was in a molten state organisms of an entirely different nature must have existed. E. points out that according to the cosmogony of Kant and La Place a nebulous period preceded the molten, and we should have to suppose still another order of organisms. Since it is not the same elements which constituted the living matter in these periods as to-day, the so-called constancy does not apply to anything concrete.