The human species

by A. de Quatrefages

No antagonism, it is true, exists between gravitation and etherodynamy. It is no less true that the action of the first is always disturbed in a peculiar manner by that of the second, and that in some phenomena it seems as if the latter would neutralise the former. This fact is most strikingly shown in some of the commonest experiments in physics. The gold leaves of the electroscope separate, the pith-balls are attracted towards electrified bodies in spite of their weight, and are repelled with a rapidity greater than that which would result merely from their own weight. And yet these bodies have no more ceased to possess weight than those masses of iron raised by the powerful magnets of M. Jamin. Etherodynamy in these two cases merely overcame gravitation and either modified or imitated its action.

Those terrestrial bodies which present no other phenomena than those which can be referred to either gravitation or etherodynamy have, since the time of Linnæus, been termed Inanimate Bodies. Together they constitute the Mineral Kingdom. We see that the existence and the distinction of this group are perfectly independent of any hypothesis intended to explain the phenomena.

Two kinds of phenomena then are characteristic of the mineral kingdom: phenomena of the Keplerian movement and physico-chemical phenomena, which may be attributed to the action of two forces: gravitation and etherodynamy.

V. The sidereal and mineral kingdoms form the Inorganic Empire. Passing from it we enter the domain of organized and living beings. We have already seen the essential phenomena by which they are distinguished. These phenomena differ essentially from all those which we have observed in inanimate bodies. It seems to me, therefore, necessary to attribute them to a special cause,—to Life.

I know that in the present day any one making use of this word is readily accused by a great number of physicists and chemists, and by an entire physiological school, of introducing into science a vague and almost mysterious expression. There is, however, nothing in it more vague or mysterious than in the word gravitation.

It is very true that we do not know what Life is; but no more do we know what the force is that set the stars in motion and retains them in their orbits. If astronomers have been right in giving to the force, or unknown cause, which gives the worlds their mathematical movements, naturalists have a perfect right to designate by a special term that unknown cause which produces filiation, birth and death.

It will be apparent that my idea of Life is not the same as it was with many ancient vitalists, that it is no more the arche of van Helmont than the vital principle of Barthez. Its function appears to me very different to that attributed to it by most of our predecessors, and which is still attributed to it by some physiologists.

Far from merely animating the organs, it is closely associated with the forces of which we have already spoken. Living beings are heavy, and therefore subject to gravitation; they are the seat of numerous and various physico-chemical phenomena which are indispensable to their existence and which must be referred to the action of etherodynamy. But these phenomena are here manifested under the influence of another force. It is for this reason that the results of these phenomena are often quite different to those in inanimate bodies, and that living beings have their special products. Life is not antagonistic to the inanimate forces, but it governs and rules their action by its laws. Therefore it makes them produce tissues, organs and individuals instead of crystals; it organizes germs, and maintains through space and time, in spite of the most complex metamorphoses, that unity of definite living forms which we call Species.

If the anti-vitalists would only seriously reflect upon the matter, they would acknowledge that, considered from this point of view, there is nothing more mysterious in living beings than in some of the commonest phenomena presented by inanimate bodies. The intervention of Life as a modifying agent of actions purely etherodynamic may be as easily admitted as that of etherodynamy itself modifying and overcoming the action of weight. It is just as strange to see a piece of iron attracted and supported by a magnet, as to see carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen combine and dispose themselves so as to form an animal or vegetable cell instead of any imaginable inorganic composition.