This, it must be said, is simply
irreconcileable with the scientific view on the subject as hitherto
understood.
By the and of Professor Yaeger's theory this difficulty can be
explained, I am happy to say, in a most satisfactory way.
The seat of the vital principle, according to Professor Yaeger's theory,
is not the protoplasm, but the odorant matter imbedded in it. And such
being the case, the vital principle, as far as it can be reached by the
breaking up of its animated protoplasm, is really indestructible. You
destroy the protoplasm by burning it, by treating it with sulphuric
acid, or any other decomposing agent--the odoriferous substances, far
from being destroyed, become only so much the more manifest; they
escape the moment protoplasmic destruction or decomposition begins,
carrying along with them the vital principle, or what has been acting as
such in the protoplasm. And as they are volatile, they must soon meet
with other protoplasms congenial to their nature, and set up there the
same kind of vital activity as they have done in their former habitat.
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