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H. W. Conn. The Story of the Living Machine
The Story of the Living Machine
Table of Contents
PREFACE
THE STORY OF THE LIVING MACHINE
INTRODUCTION
PART I
THE RUNNING OF THE LIVING MACHINE
CHAPTER I
IS THE BODY A MACHINE?
CHAPTER II
THE CELL AND PROTOPLASM
PART II
THE BUILDING OF THE LIVING MACHINE
CHAPTER III
THE FACTORS CONCERNED IN THE BUILDING OF THE LIVING MACHINE
THE LIBRARY OF USEFUL STORIES
New Edition of Huxley's Essays
BOOKS FOR NATURE LOVERS
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H. W. Conn
A Review of the Conclusions of Modern Biology in Regard / to the Mechanism Which Controls the Phenomena of Living / Activity
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This mechanical conception of living activity was carried even farther. Under the lead of Huxley there arose in the seventh decade of the century a view of life which reduced it to a pure mechanism. The microscope had, at that time, just disclosed the universal presence in living things of that wonderful substance, protoplasm. This material appeared to be a homogeneous substance, and a chemical study showed it to be made of chemical elements united in such a way as to show close relation to albumens. It appeared to be somewhat more complex than ordinary albumen, but it was looked upon as a definite chemical compound, or, perhaps, as a simple mixture of compounds. Chemists had shown that the properties of compounds vary with their composition, and that the more complex the compound the more varied its properties. It was a natural conception, therefore, that protoplasm was a complex chemical compound, and that its vital properties were simply the chemical properties resulting from its composition. Just as water possesses the power of becoming solid at certain temperatures, so protoplasm possesses the power of assimilating food and growing; and, since we do not doubt that the properties of water are the result of its chemical composition, so we may also assume that the vital properties of protoplasm are the result of its chemical composition. It followed from this conclusion that if chemists ever succeeded in manufacturing the chemical compound, protoplasm, it would be alive. Vital phenomena were thus reduced to chemical and mechanical problems.
These ideas arose shortly after the middle of the century, and have dominated the development of biological science up to the present time. It is evident that the aim of biological study must be to test these conceptions and carry them out into details. The chemical and mechanical laws of nature must be applied to vital phenomena in order to see whether they can furnish a satisfactory explanation of life. Are the laws and forces of chemistry sufficient to explain digestion? Are the laws of electricity applicable to an understanding of nervous phenomena? Are physical and chemical forces together sufficient to explain life? Can the animal body be properly regarded as a machine controlled by mechanical laws? Or, on the other hand, are there some phases of life which the forces of chemistry and physics cannot account for? Are there limits to the application of natural law to explain life? Can there be found something connected with living beings which is force but not correlated with the ordinary forms of energy? Is there such a thing as vital energy, or is the so-called vital force simply a name which we have given to the peculiar manifestations of ordinary energy as shown in the substance protoplasm? These are some of the questions that modern biology is trying to answer, and it is the existence of such questions which has made modern biology a new science. Such questions not only did not, but could not, have arisen before the doctrines of the conservation of energy and evolution had made their impression upon the thought of the world.
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