Here, however, within the bodies of animals and vegetables we find
equivocal generation a necessity; nor do I see any way out of it
except by maintaining that nothing is ever either quite dead or quite
alive, but that a little leaven of the one is always left in the
other. For it would be as difficult to get the thing dead if it is
once all alive, as alive if once all dead.
According to this view to beget offspring is to communicate to two
pieces of protoplasm (which afterwards combine) certain rhythmic
vibrations which, though too feeble to generate visible action until
they receive accession of fresh similar rhythms from exterior
objects, yet on receipt of such accession set the game of development
going and maintain it. It will be observed that the rhythms supposed
to be communicated to any germs are such as have been already
repeatedly refreshed by rhythms from exterior objects in preceding
generations, so that a consonance is rehearsed and pre-arranged, as
it were, between the rhythm in the germ and those that in the normal
course of its ulterior existence are likely to flow into it. If
there is too serious a discord between inner and outer rhythms the
organism dies.
Atoms and Fixed Laws
When people talk of atoms obeying fixed laws, they are either
ascribing some kind of intelligence and free will to atoms or they
are talking nonsense.
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