Abstract
WE can hardly suppose that M. Préaubert intends his remarkable speculation to be taken seriously. His contention is that life is essentially a mode of motion of the ether, and as such is closely allied with electricity and magnetism; finding, like these forces, its expression but not its origin in ponderable matter. It is, he maintains, in consequence of the failure to recognise the ether as the true seat of vital activity that all attempts to explain the phenomena of life on a purely chemical or physical basis have hitherto broken down. With the removal of “vitality” to the region of the ether, the material difficulties vanish; the connection between vitality and the other forces of the physical universe becomes declared, and biology resolves itself essentially into a mere question of mechanics. What then is the true distinction, between life, on the one hand, and light, radiafjt heat and electricity on the other? The author answers that life is a series, not of vibrations, but of vortex-movements; his discovery, in fact, could hardly be better expressed than in the words of the puzzle-headed old Athenian in the ”Clouds“—
La Vie: Mode de Mouvement. Essai d'une Théorie Physique des Phénomènes Vitaux.
Par E. Préaubert, Professeur an Lycée d'Angers, &c. Pp. 310. (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1897.)
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D., F. La Vie: Mode de Mouvement Essai d'une Théorie Physique des Phénomènes Vitaux. Nature 57, 605 (1898). https://doi.org/10.1038/057605a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/057605a0