chromosomes, and that of the nucleoles? And is not each of these probably a very complex mixture ?
However, it is to this mixture that we attribute the possession of a form, in virtue of and by extension of the principles of crystallization, which definitely teach us that these mixtures cannot have form; that form is the attribute of pure bodies, and is only obtained by the separation of the blended parts—i.e., by a return to homogeneity. There are therefore very good reasons for hesitating before we transfer the absolute principle of the dependence between chemical form and composition, as some philosophical biologists have done, from the physical sciences—where it is already subject to serious restrictions—to the biological sciences.
Le Dantec, however, has made this principle the basis of his biological system. He therefore finds in the crystal the model of the living being. He thus gives a physical basis to life.
Is it a question in this system of explaining this incomprehensible, this unfathomable mystery, which shows the egg cell attracting to itself materials from without and progressively building up that amazing structure which is the body of the animal, the body of a man, of any given man, of Primus, for example? It is said that the substance of Primus is specific. His living substance is his own, special to him; and that, too, from the beginning of the egg to the end of its metamorphosis. It only remains to apply to this substance the postulate, borrowed from crystallography, of the absolute dependence of the nature of substance on the form it assumes. The form of the body of the animal, of the man, of Primus, is the crystalline form of their living substance. It is the
