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DENTAL EMBRYOLOGY AND HISTOLOGY.
By W. XAVIER SUDDUTH, M. D., D. D. S.
Physiological, Consideration op Life-Force.
What is the nature of life? is a question which man is ever asking
of the universe of wiiieh he is so wondrous yet so infinitely small a
part. From the earliest times the ultimate purpose of all scientific
research has been to elicit a sufficing reply to this inquiry. The deepest
thinkers and most devoted searchers after truth have speculated and
investigated in the hope of making up something like a satisfactory
answer. But, though knowledge has been augmented and phenomena
explained, the great life-mystery remains unrevealed. The question
still is asked, What is that vital or living principle which we call life?
Scientists and philosophers have ventured various and widely diver-
gent theories in explanation of the nature and powers of vital phenom-
ena. Setting aside opinions that are so manifestly based upon fallacies
as to carry with them no inkling even of definite signification, the great
variety of theories advanced in our own day may be for the most part
reduced to two or three classes.
In the early part of the present century Lorenz Oken, a devotee of the
physical school, proclaimed "primordial slime" to be the original source
of life and the material basis of all living bodies. This " primordial
slime" possessed in all essentials the same qualities and the same import-
ance now ascribed to the substance known as protoplasm. The proto-
plasm theory—varied in many ways as to the first vitality on earth
has occupied the attention of the most earnest scientists and profoundest
thinkers of the age.
It is not mv intention to notice to any extent the diiferent phases
which this theory has assumed, but I wish to be understood as antag-
onizing that interpretation of it which aims to make the beginning of
life in the individual solve the great mystery of the beginning of life
in the world. I desire, at the outset, to forestall any misapprehension
of facts I may state hereafter, and to impress upon my readers the wide
difference between accepting protoplasm as the fird formative substance
and ascribing to it the power of spontaneous generation, since it by no
means follows that because it is the essential and active agent in the
formation of every tissue, in the construction of every organ and of
every form of mechanism existing in a living being, it is in any sense
self-originating.
Perhaps the most plausible theory advanced by speculators concerning
619
DENTAL EMBRYOLOGY AND HISTOLOGY.
By W. XAVIER SUDDUTH, M. D., D. D. S.
Physiological, Consideration op Life-Force.
What is the nature of life? is a question which man is ever asking
of the universe of wiiieh he is so wondrous yet so infinitely small a
part. From the earliest times the ultimate purpose of all scientific
research has been to elicit a sufficing reply to this inquiry. The deepest
thinkers and most devoted searchers after truth have speculated and
investigated in the hope of making up something like a satisfactory
answer. But, though knowledge has been augmented and phenomena
explained, the great life-mystery remains unrevealed. The question
still is asked, What is that vital or living principle which we call life?
Scientists and philosophers have ventured various and widely diver-
gent theories in explanation of the nature and powers of vital phenom-
ena. Setting aside opinions that are so manifestly based upon fallacies
as to carry with them no inkling even of definite signification, the great
variety of theories advanced in our own day may be for the most part
reduced to two or three classes.
In the early part of the present century Lorenz Oken, a devotee of the
physical school, proclaimed "primordial slime" to be the original source
of life and the material basis of all living bodies. This " primordial
slime" possessed in all essentials the same qualities and the same import-
ance now ascribed to the substance known as protoplasm. The proto-
plasm theory—varied in many ways as to the first vitality on earth
has occupied the attention of the most earnest scientists and profoundest
thinkers of the age.
It is not mv intention to notice to any extent the diiferent phases
which this theory has assumed, but I wish to be understood as antag-
onizing that interpretation of it which aims to make the beginning of
life in the individual solve the great mystery of the beginning of life
in the world. I desire, at the outset, to forestall any misapprehension
of facts I may state hereafter, and to impress upon my readers the wide
difference between accepting protoplasm as the fird formative substance
and ascribing to it the power of spontaneous generation, since it by no
means follows that because it is the essential and active agent in the
formation of every tissue, in the construction of every organ and of
every form of mechanism existing in a living being, it is in any sense
self-originating.
Perhaps the most plausible theory advanced by speculators concerning
619
