the possession of a specific form acquired, preserved, and repaired by the element. The fourth character, and perhaps the most essential of all, is the property of growth or nutrition with its consequence, namely, a relation of exchanges with the external medium, exchanges in which oxygen plays considerable part. Finally, there is a last property, that of reproduction, which in a certain measure is a necessary consequence of the preceding,—i.e., of growth.
These five vital characters of the elements are most in evidence in cells living in isolation, in microscopical beings formed of a single cell, protophytes and protozoa. But we find them also in the associations formed by the cells among one another—i.e., in ordinary plants and animals, multicellular complexes, called for this reason metaphytes and metazoa. Free or associated, the anatomical elements behave in the same way—feed, grow, breathe, digest in the same manner. As a matter of fact, the grouping of the cells, the relations, proximity and contiguity, which they assume, introduce some variants into the expression of the common phenomena; but these slight differences cannot disguise the essential community of the vital processes.
The majority of physiologists, following Claude Bernard, admit as valent and convincing the proof that the illustrious experimenter furnished of this unity of the vital processes. There are, however, a few voices crying in the wilderness. M. Le Dantec is one. In his new theory of life he amplifies and exalts the differences which exist between the elementary life of the proteids and the associated life of the metazoa. In them he can see nothing but contrasts and deviations.
