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4 THE WORLD OF LIFE
maturity, and age, die, and quickly decompose into their constituent
elements. They thusform continuous series of similar
individuals ; and, so long
as external conditions render their
existence possible, seem to possess a potential immortality.
The characteristics here enumerated are those which
apply to both plants and animals, and to no other forms of
matter whatever. It is often stated that crystals exhibit the
essential features of some of the lowest plants ; but it is
evident that, with the exception of the one item of " definite
form," they in no way resemble living organisms. There is
no doubt, however, that crystals do exhibit definite forms,
built up by the atoms or molecules of various elements or
compounds under special conditions. But this takes us a
very small way towards the complex structure and organisation
of living things.
There are still people who vaguely believe that " stones
grow," or that " all matter is really alive," or that, in their
lowest and simplest forms, the organic and the inorganic are
indistinguishable. For these ideas, however, there is not a
particle of scientific justification. But the belief that " life " is
a product of matter acted upon by chemical, electrical, or
other physical forces, is very widely accepted by men of
science at the present day, perhaps by a majority. It is, in
fact, held to be the only scientific view, under the name of
" monism" ; while the belief that " life " is sui generis, that it
is due to other laws than those which act upon dead or
unorganised matter, that it affords evidence of an indwelling
is held to be un-
power and guidance of a special nature,
to be, in fact, an indication of something akin to,
scientific
if not actually constituting, an old-fashioned superstition.
That such a view is not uncommon may be shown by a few
extracts from scientific writers of some eminence.
The well-known German biologist Ernst Haeckel, in a
recent work, makes the following statement :
" The peculiar phenomenon of consciousness is not, as Du Bois-
Reymond and the dualistic school would have us believe, a com-
pletely transcendental problem ;
it is, as I showed thirty-three years
ago, a physiological problem, and, as such, must be reduced to the
phenomena of "
physics and chemistry (The Riddle of the Universe,
p. 65, translated by Joseph M'Cabe).