Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variationsin hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all otherspelling and punctuation remains unchanged.
In the section on The Instinct of Life, fifth paragraph “and Flourenshas reduced the ratio to that of 5:1, which would still give us 120years.” the 120 has been corrected to 100.
In Book V, Chapter III, Chemical Changes, “and at the same time wouldtransform an amido-group into an amido-group.” is as printed.
LIFE AND DEATH.
BY
A. DASTRE,
PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGY AT THE SORBONNE.
TRANSLATED BY
W. J. GREENSTREET, M.A., F.R.A.S.
THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LTD.,
PATERNOSTER SQUARE, LONDON, E.C.
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS,
153-157 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
1911
The educated and inquiring public of the presentday addresses to the experts who have specializedin every imaginable subject the question that wasasked in olden times of Euclid by King PtolemyPhiladelphus, Protector of Letters. Recoiling indismay from the difficulties presented by the studyof mathematics and annoyed at his slow progress, heinquired of the celebrated geometer if there wasnot some royal road, could he not learn geometrymore easily than by studying the Elements. Thelearned Greek replied, “There is no royal road.”These royal roads making every branch of scienceaccessible to the cultivated mind did not exist inthe days of Ptolemy and Euclid. But they doexist to-day. These roads form what we callScientific Philosophy.
Scientific philosophy opens a path through thehitherto inextricable medley of natural phenomena.It throws light on facts, it lays bare principles, itreplaces contingent details by essential facts. Andthus it makes science accessible and communicable.Intellectually it performs a very lofty function.
There is virtually a philosophy of every science.[Pg vi]There is therefore a philosophy of the science whichdeals with the phenomena of life and death—i.e., ofphysiology. I have endeavoured to give a summaryof this philosophy in this volume. I have had inview two classes of readers. In the first place thereare readers of general culture who are desirous ofknowing something of the trend of ideas in biology.They already form quite a large section of the greatpublic.
These scholars and inquirers, with Bacon, believethat the only science is general science. What theywant to know is not what instruments we use, ourprocesses, our technique, and the thousand and onedetails of the experiments on which we spend ourlives in the laboratory. What they are interested inare the general truths we have acquired, the problemswe are trying to solve, the principles ofour methods, the progress of our science in thepast, its state in the present, its probable course inthe future.
But I venture to think that this book is alsoaddressed to another class of readers, to those whoseprofessional study is physiology. To them it isdedicated. They have been initiated into themysteries of the science. They are learning it bypractice. That is the right method. Practice makesperfect. Claude Bernard used to say that in orderto be an expert in experimental science you mustfirst be “a laboratory rat.” And among us there aremany s