Chapter I: Preface

The educated and inquiring public of the present day addresses to the experts who have specialized in every imaginable subject the question that was asked in olden times of Euclid by King Ptolemy Philadelphus, Protector of Letters. Recoiling in dismay from the difficulties presented by the study of mathematics and annoyed at his slow progress, he inquired of the celebrated geometer if there was not some royal road, could he not learn geometry more easily than by studying the Elements. The learned Greek replied, “There is no royal road.” These royal roads making every branch of science accessible to the cultivated mind did not exist in the days of Ptolemy and Euclid. But they do exist to-day. These roads form what we call Scientific Philosophy.

Scientific philosophy opens a path through the hitherto inextricable medley of natural phenomena. It throws light on facts, it lays bare principles, it replaces contingent details by essential facts. And thus it makes science accessible and communicable. Intellectually it performs a very lofty function.

There is virtually a philosophy of every science. There is therefore a philosophy of the science which deals with the phenomena of life and death—_i.e._, of physiology. I have endeavoured to give a summary of this philosophy in this volume. I have had in view two classes of readers. In the first place there are readers of general culture who are desirous of knowing something of the trend of ideas in biology. They already form quite a large section of the great public.

These scholars and inquirers, with Bacon, believe that the only science is general science. What they want to know is not what instruments we use, our processes, our technique, and the thousand and one details of the experiments on which we spend our lives in the laboratory. What they are interested in are the general truths we have acquired, the problems we are trying to solve, the principles of our methods, the progress of our science in the past, its state in the present, its probable course in the future.

But I venture to think that this book is also addressed to another class of readers, to those whose professional study is physiology. To them it is dedicated. They have been initiated into the mysteries of the science. They are learning it by practice. That is the right method. Practice makes perfect. Claude Bernard used to say that in order to be an expert in experimental science you must first be “a laboratory rat.” And among us there are many such “laboratory rats.” They are guided in the daily task of investigation by a dim instinct of the path and of the direction of contemporary physiology. Perhaps it may be of assistance to them to find their more or less unconscious ideas here expressed in an explicit form.

A. DASTRE.

CONTENTS.

BOOK I.

THE FRONTIERS OF SCIENCE. GENERAL THEORIES OF
LIFE AND DEATH. THEIR SUCCESSIVE TRANSFORMATIONS.

CHAP. PAGE

I. EARLY THEORIES 1

II. ANIMISM 5

III. VITALISM 15

IV. THE MONISTIC THEORY 34

V. THE EMANCIPATION OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FROM
THE YOKE OF PHILOSOPHICAL DOCTRINE 42

BOOK II.

THE DOCTRINE OF ENERGY AND THE LIVING WORLD.
GENERAL IDEAS OF LIFE. ALIMENTARY LIFE.

I. ENERGY IN GENERAL 57

II. ENERGY IN BIOLOGY 97

III. ALIMENTARY ENERGETICS 116

BOOK III.

THE CHARACTERS COMMON TO LIVING BEINGS.

I. DOCTRINE OF VITAL UNITY 146

II. MORPHOLOGICAL UNITY OF LIVING BEINGS 157

III. CHEMICAL UNITY OF LIVING BEINGS 173

IV. TWOFOLD CONDITIONS OF VITAL PHENOMENA.
IRRITABILITY 188

V. THE SPECIFIC FORM: ITS ACQUISITION, ITS REPARATION 199

VI. NUTRITION. FUNCTIONAL ASSIMILATION. FUNCTIONAL
DISTRIBUTION. ASSIMILATING SYNTHESIS 209

BOOK IV.

THE LIFE OF MATTER.

I. UNIVERSAL LIFE (OPINIONS OF THE PHILOSOPHERS
AND POETS). CONTINUITY BETWEEN BRUTE BODIES
AND LIVING BODIES. ORIGIN OF THE PRINCIPLE OF
CONTINUITY 239

II. ORIGIN OF LIVING MATTER IN BRUTE MATTER 249

III. ORGANIZATION AND CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF LIVING
MATTER AND BRUTE MATTER 255

IV. EVOLUTION AND MUTABILITY OF LIVING MATTER AND
BRUTE MATTER 259

V. THE COMPOSITION OF THE SPECIFIC FORM. LIVING
BODIES AND CRYSTALS. CICATRIZATION 281

VI. NUTRITION IN THE LIVING BEING AND IN THE
CRYSTAL 290

VII. GENERATION IN BRUTE BODIES AND LIVING BODIES.
SPONTANEOUS GENERATION 294

BOOK V.

SENESCENCE AND DEATH.

I. THE DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW FROM WHICH DEATH
MAY BE REGARDED 307

II. CONSTITUTION OF THE ORGANISMS. PARTIAL DEATH.
COLLECTIVE DEATHS 312

III. PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF
CELLULAR DEATHS. NECROBIOSIS 321

IV. APPARENT PERRENNITY OF COMPLEX INDIVIDUALS 330

V. IMMORTALITY OF THE PROTOZOA AND OF SLIGHTLY
DIFFERENTIATED CELLS 334

VI. LETHALITY OF THE METAZOA AND OF DIFFERENTIATED
CELLS 340

VII. MAN. THE INSTINCT OF LIFE AND THE INSTINCT OF
DEATH 345

INDEX 361

LIFE AND DEATH.