The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of the Living Machine, by H. W. Conn

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Story of the Living Machine
A Review of the Conclusions of Modern Biology in Regard
to the Mechanism Which Controls the Phenomena of Living
Activity

Author: H. W. Conn

Release Date: August 8, 2005 [EBook #16487]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF THE LIVING MACHINE ***

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Janet Blenkinship and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

THE STORY OF THE LIVING MACHINE

A REVIEW OF THE CONCLUSIONS OF MODERN BIOLOGY IN REGARD TO THE MECHANISM
WHICH CONTROLS THE PHENOMENA OF LIVING ACTIVITY

BY

H.W. CONN

PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY IN WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY

AUTHOR OF THE STORY OF GERM LIFE, EVOLUTION OF TO-DAY,
THE LIVING WORLD, ETC.

_WITH FIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS_

NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1903

COPYRIGHT, 1899,
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

PREFACE.

That the living body is a machine is a statement that is frequently made
without any very accurate idea as to what it means. On the one hand it
is made with a belief that a strict comparison can be made between the
body and an ordinary, artificial machine, and that living beings are
thus reduced to simple mechanisms; on the other hand it is made loosely,
without any special thought as to its significance, and certainly with
no conception that it reduces life to a mechanism. The conclusion that
the living body is a machine, involving as it does a mechanical
conception of life, is one of most extreme philosophical importance, and
no one interested in the philosophical conception of nature can fail to
have an interest in this problem of the strict accuracy of the statement
that the body is a machine. Doubtless the complete story of the living
machine can not yet be told; but the studies of the last fifty years
have brought us so far along the road toward its completion that a
review of the progress made and a glance at the yet unexplored realms
and unanswered questions will be profitable. For this purpose this work
is designed, with the hope that it m