Note 1 — ANTS AND SOME OTHER INSECTS.

If I expressly refrain from accepting the premature and unjustifiable identification of cell-life with a “machine,” I nevertheless do not share the so-called vitalistic views. It is quite possible that science may sometime be able to produce living protoplasm from inorganic matter. The vital forces have undoubtedly originated from physico-chemical forces. But the ultimate nature of the latter and of the assumed material atoms is, of course, metaphysical, i. e., unknowable.