could be irritated and stimulated in the same way, and finally could be
poisoned and killed. "Among such phenomena," he asks, "how can we draw
the line of demarkation, and say, 'Here the physical ends, and there
the physiological begins'? No such barrier exists." According to his
theory, which agrees with the oldest occult theories, by the way, life
is present in every object and form of Nature, and all forms respond to
external stimulus, which response is a proof of the presence of life in
the form.

Prof. Bose's great book is full of the most startling results of
experiments. He proves that the metals manifest something like sleep;
can be killed; exhibit torpor and sluggishness; get tired or lazy; wake
up; can be roused into activity; may be stimulated, strengthened,
weakened; suffer from extreme cold and heat; may be drugged or
intoxicated, the different metals manifesting a different response to
certain drugs, just as different men and animals manifest a varying
degree of similar resistance. The response of a piece of steel
subjected to the influence of a chemical poison shows a gradual
fluttering and weakening until it finally dies away, just as animal
matter does when similarly poisoned. When revived in time by an
antidote, the recovery was similarly gradual in both metal and muscle.
A remarkable fact is noted by the scientist when he tells us that the
very poisons that kill the metals are themselves alive and may be
killed, drugged, stimulated, etc., showing the same response as in the
case of the metals, proving the existence in them of the same life that
is in the metals and animal matter that they influence.

Of course when these metals are "killed" there is merely a killing of
the metal as metal--the atoms and principles of which the metal is
composed remaining fully alive and active, just as is the case with the