Death and resurrection from the point of view of the cell-theory

by Gustaf Björklund

Above all, says Büchner, it is the province of chemistry to show that the elements of matter are everywhere the same in the inorganic as well as in the organic world, and that life substance is unable to present one single atom not found in inorganic nature and therefore not partaking in the general flux (Stoffwechsel) of matter. Chemistry has decomposed organic bodies into their elements exactly as it did before with the inorganic.

All known inorganic forces act identically with respect to living as to dead nature. We have seen that forces are nothing but qualities and motions of the smallest particles of matter, the atoms, with which these forces are invariably and inseparably conjoined. An atom therefore under all circumstances can only perform the same work, develop the same forces, produce the same effects, whether it belongs for the moment to an organic or to an inorganic composition. Respiration, digestion, the process of growing and segregation are all chemical reactions. Oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen are composed and decomposed within the organic body in accordance with the same laws that govern them outside.

We have also learned more perfectly how nourishment is transformed into organic tissues, and we know that through different channels it leaves the body in precisely the same quantity as it entered, partly unmodified and partly in other forms and compositions. No one atom has meanwhile been lost or become another. Digestion is a purely chemical process. The stomach of an animal may well be compared to a chemical retort, where the substances there mixed are decomposed and composed exactly according to the general laws of chemical affinity.

These facts, which may be multiplied ad infinitum, enable us to understand that the difference between organic and inorganic is non-essential, and that therefore every living being may be considered a chemical laboratory, whence we arrive at the following result:

Because daily experience teaches us that all organisms consist of the same atoms as does inorganic nature, although in different compositions, therefore no specific organic force, no life-force, can exist. This latter is not a principle, but a result. When organic substance assimilates inorganic and brings it into its own characteristic condition, this is not done through a specific force, but through a kind of infection, whereby the molecular conditions in the organic substance are transferred to the inorganic.

But not only does organic matter consist of the same elements that are to be found in inorganic nature, but the organism as a whole is nothing but a bodily mechanism not differing from other machines except in its more complicated construction. Water, says Büchner, which must be considered as the foremost and most important part in all organic beings, and without which all animal and plant life were impossible, water penetrates, flows and sinks according to the laws of gravity, not differing by the breadth of a hair in its action within and without the organism. The circulation of the blood is as mechanical as we could wish, and the anatomic contrivance that causes it bears a surprising likeness to mechanical apparatus made by man’s hand. The heart is provided with valves just as a steam engine; the valve movements produce audible sounds. The rise of the blood from the lower parts of the body to the heart against gravity can only be made possible by a mechanical arrangement. The bowels convey their content mechanically; mechanically the muscle movements take place, and mechanical motility characterizes men and animals. The human eye obeys the same laws as a camera obscura and the ear catches the sound waves in same way as does any other vault, and so on.

Science, therefore, entertains no doubt that the living organism is a machine as well as the steam engine, i. e., a system where chemical affinity produces heat, electricity and muscular energy.

Now, are these facts, pointed out by Büchner, true and correct? Undoubtedly they are in all essential respects eternal truths, and we may add that they are just as important foundations for idealism as the materialists have claimed them to be for their opinion. But before we take up this subject let us see how the materialists derive their philosophy from the facts mentioned.

There are many other objects in this world, of which we might almost verbally repeat what Büchner says about organic matter; for instance, windows, doors, locks, bricks, houses, etc. In these objects also there is not one atom to be found which was not present in the raw material of which they were made. But does the raw material itself produce these things? So Büchner reasons. He says: “Because all organic matter consists of inorganic raw material, therefore the raw material, itself, has made the organic matter. Because the organism is essentially like a steam engine, the building material itself has made the organism.”

This headlong way of reasoning and concluding is not characteristic of Büchner alone, but applies equally to the whole materialistic school during the past century.