The human species

by A. de Quatrefages

In other words, filiation, nutrition, birth and death, are so many characteristics of the organised being, of which no trace is found in inanimate bodies. I agree with Pallas in making inanimate bodies compose the Inorganic Empire, and organised beings the Organic Empire.

I must here make an observation, the importance of which will be easily understood.

The existence of the two groups which have been recognised by the good sense of the general public as well as by the science of Pallas, is a fact absolutely independent of all hypothesis. Whatever explanation we may propose to account for the differential phenomena which distinguish them, these phenomena will not the less exist; the inanimate body will never be an organised being.

To attempt, under any pretext whatever, to reconcile or confound these two kinds of objects with each other, is to go in direct opposition to all the progress made for more than a century, and especially during the last few years, in physics, chemistry and physiology. It is inexplicable to me that some men, whose merits I otherwise acknowledge, should have recently again compared crystals to the simplest living forms, to the sarcodic organisms, as they were called by Dujardin, who discovered them, and was the first to give a comprehensive theory of them from minute observations. A change of name is useless; the things remain the same, and protoplasm has the same properties as sarcode. The animals, whose entire substance they seem to form, have not altered their nature; whether monera or amœbæ, these forms are the antipodes of the crystal from every point of view.

A crystal, as M. Naudin has well remarked, closely resembles one of those regular piles of shot which may be seen in every arsenal. It only increases from the exterior, as the pile is increased when the soldier adds a fresh layer of shot; its molecules are just as immovable as the balls of iron. It is exactly the contrary with the organised being, and the simpler its composition the greater the contrast. The small size of the moneron and the amœba prevents, it is true, certain observations. I appeal, however, to all those naturalists who have studied certain marine sponges in a living state. They must like myself have remarked the strange activity of the vital whirlpool in the semi-sarcodic substance which surrounds their siliceous or horny skeleton; they will have seen the sea water in which they are placed move with a rapidity which it never exhibits when in contact with any other animal.

The reason is that, in the organised being, the repose of the crystal is replaced by an incessant movement; that, instead of remaining immovable and unalterable, the molecules are unceasingly undergoing transformation, changing their composition, producing fresh substances, retaining some and rejecting others. Far from resembling a pile of shot, the organised being may much rather be compared to the combination of a number of physico-chemical apparatus, constantly in action to burn or reduce materials borrowed from without, and ever making use of their own substance for its incessant renewal.

In other words, in the crystal once formed the forces remain in a state of stable equilibrium, which is only interrupted by the influence of exterior causes. Hence the possibility of its indefinite continuance without any change either of its forms or of its properties. In the organised being the equilibrium is unstable, or rather, there is no equilibrium properly so called. Every moment the organised being expends as much force as matter, and owes its continuance solely to the balance of the gain and loss. Hence the possibility of a modification of its properties and form without its ceasing to exist.

Such are the bare facts which rest upon no hypothesis whatever; and how can we, in the presence of these facts, compare the crystal which grows in a saline solution to the germ which becomes in succession embryo, fœtus, and finally a complete animal? How can we confuse the inanimate body with the organised being.

The two groups are easily separated by the phenomena they exhibit. It is the same with the causes of the phenomenon.

Naturalists and physiologists are here divided. Some would have it that the cause, or the causes, are identical, and that conditions, which are almost accidental, alone determine the difference in the results by changing their mode of action. In their opinion the formation of a crystal or of a moneron is only a question of resultant.