Life and death

Origin of the Idea of Energy.—The Phenomena of Nature bring into play only two Elements, Matter and Energy.—§ 1. Matter.—§ 2. Energy.—§ 3. Mechanical Energy.—§ 4. Thermal Energy...

Various Problems of Alimentation. § 1. _Food the source of Energy and Matter._ The two forms of Energy afforded by Food—Vital Energy, Thermal Energy. Food the source of Heat. Th...

The extreme importance of nutrition—§ 1. Effect of vital activity—Destruction or growth—Distinction between the living substance and the reserve-stuff mingled with it—Organic de...

The miseries of humanity: 1. Disease; 2. Old age.—Old age considered as a chronic disease.—Its occasional cause.—3. The disharmonies of human nature; 4. The instinct of life and...

Supposed immobility of brute bodies—Mobility and mutability of the sidereal world.—§ 1. The movement of particles and molecules in brute bodies—The internal movements of brute b...

Its Extreme Forms—Early Vitalism, and Modern Neo-vitalism—Advantage of distinguishing between Soul and Life—§ 1. _The Vitalism of Barthez_—Its Extension—The Seat of the Vital Pr...

§ 1. Energy in Living Beings.—§ 2. The First Law of Biological Energetics:—All Vital Phenomena are Energetic Transformations.—§ 3. Second Law:—The Origin of Vital Energy is in C...

§ 1. The cellular theory. First period: division of the organism—§ 2. Second period: division of the cell—Cytoplasm—The nucleus—§ 3. Physical constitution of living matter—The m...

The varieties and essential unity of the protoplasm—Its affinity for oxygen—The chemical composition of protoplasm—Its characteristic substances.—§ 1. The different categories o...

The excessive use of Hypothetical Agents in Physiological Explanations—§ 1. _Vital Phenomena in Fully-constituted Organisms_—Provisory Exclusion of the Morphogenic idea—The Real...

When we ask the various philosophical schools what life is, some show us a chemical retort, and others show us a soul. Whether vitalists or of the mechanical school, these are t...

Appearance of internal activity of the living being—Vital phenomena regarded as a reaction of the ambient world.—§ 1. Extrinsic conditions—The optimum law.—§ 2. Intrinsic condit...

Protoplasm a substance which continues—Case of the crystal—Characteristics of generation in the living being—Property of growth—Supposed to be confined to the living being—Ferti...

§ 1. Specific form not special to living beings—Connected with the whole of the material conditions of the body and the medium—Is it a property of chemical substance?—§ 2. Acqui...

§ 1. Primitive beliefs; the ideas of poets.—§ 2. Opinions of philosophers—Transition from brute to living bodies—The principle of continuity: continuity by transition: continuit...

The Common Characteristic of Animism and Vitalism: the Human Statue—Primitive Animism—Stahl’s Animism—First Objection with Reference to the Relation between Soul and Body—Second...

Constitution of organisms.—Partial lives.—Collective life.—The rôle of apparatus.—Death by lesion of the major apparatus.—The vital tripod.—Solidarity of the anatomical elements...

§ 1. Specific form and chemical constitution—The wide distribution of crystalline forms—Organization of crystals—Law of relation between specific form and chemical constitution—...

Characteristic of elementary life—Changes produced by death in the composition and the death of the cell—Schlemm; Loew; Bokorny; Pflüger; A. Gautier; Duclaux—The processive char...

Physico-chemical Theory of Life.—Iatro-mechanism.—Descartes, Borelli.—Iatro-chemistry.—Sylvius le Boë.—The Physico-chemical Theory of Life.—Matter and Energy.—Heterogeneity is m...

Spontaneous generation: an episode in the history of the globe—Verification of the identity between brute and living matter—Slow identification—Rapid identification—Contrary opi...

Impossibility of life without evolution—Law of increase and division—Immortality of the protozoa—Death, a phenomenon of adaptation which has appeared in the course of the ages—T...

Different meanings of the word death—Physiological distinction between elementary and general death—Non-scientific opinions—The ordinary point of view—Medical point of view.—The...

Evolution and death of metazoa.—Possible rejuvenescence of the differentiated cells by the conditions of the medium.—Conditions of the medium for immortal cells.—The immortal el...

_Enumeration of the Principal Characters of Living Beings._—The programme which we have just sketched compels us to look in the brute being for the properties of living beings....

I have already stated (Chap. VI. p. 209) that nutrition may be considered as the most characteristic and essential property of living beings. Such beings are in a state of conti...

Popular opinion teaches us that living beings have only a transient existence, and as a poet has said: “Life is but a flash between two dark nights.” But, on the other hand, sim...

The fundamental theories of science are but the expression of its most general results. What, then, is the most general result of the development of physiology or biology—that i...

_Life is the Sum-total of the Phenomena Common to all Living Beings. Elementary Life._—Living beings differ more in form and configuration than in their manner of being. They ar...

Summary: Chap. I. Universal life—Opinions of philosophers and poets—Continuity between brute and living bodies—Origin of this principle.—Chap. II. Origin of brute matter in livi...

Chap. I. The different points of view from which death may be regarded.—Chap. II. Constitution of the organisms—Partial death—Collective death.—Chap. III. Physical and chemical...

morphological unity of living beings.—Chapter III. The chemical unity of living beings.—Chapter IV. The mutability of living beings.—Chapter V. The specific form, its acquisitio...