THE REVELATIONS OE FIBRIN. 
ROLLIN 1!. GREGG, M. I)., BUFFALO, N. Y. THE REVELATIONS OF FIBRIN 
Unexpected Proof of the Immortality of Life. 
BY ROLLIN R. GREGG, M. D., BUFFALO, N. Y. 
1 am well aware that the following may be 
received with incredulity, perhaps with a 
storm of opposition; not alone Decause of its 
contradiction of the teachings of science in 
the departments to which it relates, but also 
because of the startling character of the 
claims made. But the story is simple, and it 
seems to me that it ought to be told 
without reference to consequences. If false, 
its fallacy will soon be made apparent, and no 
serious harm can come from telling it. If 
true, its truth ought to be speedily known, for 
the possibilities that may come of it in unfold- 
ing many things in both life and disease that 
will be important for us to know. This is an 
age of investigation and of overturning old 
errors. “The national academy of sciences in 
a recent session at New Haven, Conn., decided 
that the existing theories concerning the sun 
will have to be abandoned as untenable.” 
There are many other errors that will also ha ve 
to be abandoned as untenable, and possibly 
the following may show up some of these. 
Because of the positive claims I first put forth 
last summer with reference to the remarkable 
revelations fibrin had given under different 
methods of treating it, a committee was ap- 
pointed as is known by the Buffalo microscopic 
club to enquire into the subject. In connec- 
tion with tneir labors a member of this com- 
mittee put some fibrin from a washed clot of 
blood in some water in an open dish and set it 
aside to rot without the aid of extra heat. 
After two or three weeks of rotting this com- 
mitteeman showed the sample to me, as con- 
taining what his entii e committee regarded as 
good specimens of bacteria. Being entirely of 
their own manipulation and they being so con- 
fident as to the forms it contained, I obtained 
some of the fluid and experimented with it at my 
leisure. I put a drop or two upon a slide, 
placed a cover-glass over it aud examined it 
with both a fourth and eighth objective. 
There was certainly great activity of life, or 
what might well be called life, under that 
cover-glass. I could think of nothing better 
to compare the moving forms there seen to 
than a school of minnows, to be seen where 
these miniature fish abound, darting here and 
there in the greatest activity or swimming 
leisurely along as the case might be. But these 
assumed bacteria had no organization in form, 
as head, body aud tail, like minnows. They 
were mostly in straight rods without the ap- 
pearance of head or tail, as large at one end 
as the other, white in color, and most of them 
appeared under a power of three hundred, 
about a sixteenth of an inch in length. They 
would swim or dart either end foremost ap- 
parently with equal ease. Their activity at 
times was something remarkable to look upon, 
then again they would remain passive, or show 
but slight motion. I prepared several slides in 
the same way from the same fluid, and studied 
the movements and appearances of these 
creatures with the greatest care. When quiet 
1 saw clearly that they presented all the ap- 
pearance of rods or short pieces of the threads 
or fibrin of the same length, as I had seen in 
great numbers of my own experiments. Then 
I turned the cover-glasses over, let the water 
dry off from the slides for fifteen or twenty 
minutes, examined them again, and there lay 
the dead bacteria in great numbers, as inno- 
cent and harmless pieces of fibrin as one could 
wish to look upon; and there were no forms 
•present but such as fibrin gives. To prove that 
these were only forms of fibrin, I next took 
some pure fibrin that I had had digesting in 
chemically pure acetic acid for six weeks, 
crushed it down very fine with a spatula upon 
a slide, removed all the coarser particles, let 
the acid dry off, then examined them with the 
same powers before mentioned, and thus ob- 
tained precisely the same forms as those 
of the dead bacteria. No micro- 
scopist in the world could tell 
which was which unless he previously knew 
how the two were prepared. Again, in several 
instances, I obtained the same appearances 
from fibrin which I had digested in chemically 
pure nitric acid a month or more; and also 
from fibrin first boiled many hours, then 
baked to a chestnut brown, next pulverized a 
long time, then a little of this powder sifted 
into a drop of nitric acid on a slide, with a 
cover-glass placed over it and left to dry 
out slowly from under the glass. The best ap- 
pearances in these nitric acid experiments 
were found by turning the cover glasses over 
and examining the region around outside of, 
and also just within, where the edge of the 
latter had rested. And here again, 1 repeat, 
were all of the forms of the dead bacteria 
reproduced. 
My next work was to repeat my own ex- 
periments with rotting fibrin, previously re- 
ported, and daily watch every step in the 4 
process with more care if possible than before. 
To do this I obtained some fresh fibrin by 
stirring it out of bullock’s blood while yet 
warm, and washed it most carefully through 
water that had first been thoroughly boiled an 
hour or more. After this process the fibrin 
was a pure beautiful white, almost as white as 
snow, but fibrilliated; that is, something like 
fresh cotton from the balls, but much more 
in closely matted masses than this. The micro- 
scope shows these masses to b9 made up wholly 
of threads of fibrin, some straight and some 
crooked, running in every direction through 
the mass. Several samples of this pure fibrin 
I set aside to rot in water first well bailed; 
one sample under warmth of a hundred 
degrees and upwards, another in a cool room, 
still another in a warm room, but without 
extra heat, and a fourth sample in double 
distilled water in a warm room. The one 
under extra heat and the two in the warm 
room all showed actiye life in twenty-four 
hours, rods and spirals from broken threads 
of fibrin appearing in considerable numbers, 
and in active motion. In twenty four 
to forty-eight hours longer great 
numbers of roas and spirals of fibrin had ap- 
peared, an eighth to half an inchin length, 
under a fourth objective; and many of them 
possessed of the most wonderful powers of vo- 
lition that could be conceived of. The spirals 
would go through the fluid at times so rapidly 
that it was impossible to tell what they were 
until they had slowed down enough to see that 
they were spirals. They moved with the cork- 
screw motion invariably, and many if not all 
of them either end foremost with equal rapid- 
ity. Many of them were of the shape of a long 
and narrow letter S, while others had more 
spiral twists in them, extending out to what 
appeared under the power used to be a quarter 
to half an inch in length, and a few three- 
fourths of an inch or more in extent. And all 
or most of them showed, as before said, the 
most remarkable powers of volition. Many 
times have l seen hundreds of these at a single 
view in rotting fibrin, and all of them in more 
or less rapid motion. The straignt rods also 
appeared in hundreds and thousands in the 
same or other samples of fluid containing rot- 
ting fibrin, and in almost if not quite as re- 
markable activity. Indeed, their motion was 
more difficult to account for in some instances 
than was that of the spirals; as such of the 
rods as were an eighth of an inch or less in 
length, would, some of them, dart with the 
greatest rapidity without perceptible effort 
before starting, but others would show a 
tremulous motion through their whole length, 
then dart. Others longer than these, or 
appearing from an eighth to half and three- 
fourths of an inch in length would show the 
fish motion, or the longest of them the snake 
motion in swimming. Upon turning the cover 
glasses over in great numbers of these experi- 
ments, as in the others related, and fettiug the 
water dry off, the same invariable appearance 
presented, namely: rods and spirals of fibrin, 
and nothing but these and granules; except- 
ing here and there one or two other forms 
that fibrin takes under some circumstances. 
And all this is precisely what the con- 
ditions call for. For instance, when a clot of 
blood is formed out of the body, it soon 
begins to shrink as is well known, and after 
several hours shrivels to about halt its original 
size. This shriveling is due to portions of the 
fibrin threads which run in every direction 
through the clot, contracting upon themselves 
or curling into spirals, and thus drawing 
the clot together into a much firmer mass. A 
large proportion of said threads, however, or 
sections of them, remain straight. Very well; 
these straight threads, or sections of them, 
break up under decomposition into straight 
rods, the so-called baccilli, while the spiral 
portions of the threads furnish, under rotting, 
the spirochsetes, or spiral bacteria. Finally, 
both rods and spirals break up under further 
disintegration into the fibrin-granules that 
compose them, and these are the so-called mi- 
crococci, which appear in millions at the close 
of the rotting process. I have seen tens of 
thousands of them at a single view, after 
several days of the rotting of fibrin, and all of 
them in the greatest activity. In passing it 
may be well to speak of another point of some 
interest. Under successive breakings up of the 
threads of fibrin into rods, and these into 
shorter and shorter pieces, they are finally re- 
duced to a length of about the sixteenth of an 
inch, under a fourth objective, and appear to 
remain at that length, before disintegrating 
into granules, for a longer time than at any 
other stage of their disintegration. And the 
same fact seems to hold good in part with the 
spirals. 
In one specimen I saw a long,thread of fibrin 
that had evidently just parted into rods, all of 
uniform length, about the sixteenth of an inch 
under the microscope; and all but three or 
four of these rods were lying in a gracefully 
curved line end to end, but parted at their 
ends about the thirty-second of an inch, or 
enough to see the separation between them 
distinctly. There were sixty-eight of these 
rods in that line; then tbe same thread, ora 
succession of precisely similar rods, extended 
off at a sharp angle from the other, but in a 
more abrupt curve, and in this curve there 
were twenty five rods. The three or four rods 
that were not end to end in the line were never- 
theless present, but had turned partly around 
upon their centers, as though in the first efforts 
of motion, and occupied the space where they 
had belonged, but crosswise, or at right angles, 
to the rest. Here they were evidently caught 
and held fast by the drying off of the water 
from the slide, so they could not move further. 
All these short rods presented precisely the 
same appearances in every respect, excepting 
that of motion, of those of like length thac 
showed the greatest activity; and I have not 
the slightest doubt that, in two or three days, 
perhaps in a few hours more of the rotting 
process, all of those ninety-three rods of fi- 
brin, that had so recently constituted the long 
thread described, would have taken on active 
life, and each an independent motion of its 
own. With the spirals, sometimes one end 
will break off in a short crook, or those of the 
shape of the letter 8 will break in two in the 
middle, and then it is amusing to see the awk- 
ward movements or attempts at movement of 
such pieces. They will attempt the spiral 
movement but cannot carry it out, or any other 5 
motion, excepting that of awkwardness. I 
have seen hundreds of these in the course of 
my observations. 
The fad. that the threads of fibrin must and 
do break up under decomposition in the way 
described—straight threads into rods; spiral 
threads into shorter spiral pieces; and both of 
these by further rotting into the granules that 
constitute them—is very simple and must be 
self-evident to any one who will give the mat- 
ter a little i hought. It is indeed an absolute 
certainty, proved by many hundreds of ex- 
periments and observations the last nine 
months, that fibrin threads do so break in 
pieces under decay, and are not primarily 
dissolved down into fluid forms. And this is 
but the carrying out of the principle and 
methods of all organic forms in nature, under 
decay, going down and down by successive 
steps into primary granules, and in the inverse 
order of their first building up. In the clot- 
ting of blood out of the body its fibrin, which is 
the only thing in it that causes it to clot, or- 
ganizes first from its fluid state into granules, 
and these join together into rods and the latter 
into threads; whereas, under decay, all 
of this is exactly reversed, pieces breaking out 
of the threads, and then breaking up into 
shorter and shorter lengths, and these finally 
into the ultimate granules. But the facts 
that each rod or spiral that breaks out of a 
thread of fibrin under decay, comes back to 
life and the most remarkable activity; that 
when a rod or spiral breaks in two, each piece 
takes up or goes on with an independent life 
of its own; and that each and every granule 
of fibrin that the rods and spirals ultimately 
break down into, also takes up an independent 
lile of its own—no matter how long they may 
one and all have been apparently dead or 
entirely inactive—are, or become, the most 
astounding facts that science has ever been 
called upon to contemplate. As already said, 
I have repeatedly seen hundreds and thous- 
ands of rods and spirals, and tens of thousands 
of granules of fibrin, in different specimens, at 
a single view, all of which had apparently 
died with the animal from which they came, 
but all came back under rotting to the most 
violent activity. 
Another important fact it may be well to 
give here in passing. Within the last three 
months I have seen in various specimens of 
decomposing healthy florin, hundreds of Koch’s 
bacilli tuberculosis, or forms that looked ex- 
actly like a specimen of said bacilli, prepared 
in Eberth’s laboratory in Germany last sum- 
mer, and brought to this city by the physician 
who assisted in the preparation. And this 
brings up another point of much interest. 
Fibrin softens after a week to ten or more days 
of rotting so that it will take color, or absorb 
coloring matter into it, but not before. This 
is suggested as the reason why Koch did not 
succeed, on his journey to Egypt last summer, 
in staining his assumed cholera bacilli. Cholera 
kills or ends in convalescence before time has 
elapsed to soften the rods of fibrin found in its 
serous discharges; besides, it is not a disease 
of suppuration to soften them in that way. 
Tuberculosis on the contrary, and all other 
suppurative diseases, but especially the former, 
give ample time to soften the rods of fibrin, 
so they will take color, hence such can be 
colored, but not those found in cholera. 
Inflammation and suppuration are a rot- 
ting process; therefore, the threads of fibrin 
that always form in matted masses in an in- 
flamed part under congestion and inflamma- 
tion are broken down by suppuration, much as 
they are by rotting fibrin out of the body. 
Hence the so-called bacilli, or the rods from 
broken threads of fibrin that appear in all 
suppurative discharges; while in long sup- 
purations like tuberculosis said rods are more 
broken into shreds or frayed out to thus ap- 
pear like Koch’s bacilli and different from chose 
in acute abscesses. 
Say the bacterists however to all this: “"i ou 
let the germs of bacteria get into your speci- 
mens and they were there developed into all 
the forms of bacteria which you saw.” But 
stay, there is much more in this connection to 
be considered. All advocates of bacteria say 
these organisms are vegetable and only vege- 
table in their structure and nature. But is 
there not the greatest absurdity involved in 
the claim that the great activity of life and 
the remarkable powers of volition described, 
which only belong to animal life, should be 
possessed in an equal degree by vegetable cells 
and fibers? This question shows that a great 
scientific error must have been committed in 
connection with this subject. How can vege- 
table cells and fibers dart across the entire field 
of view of the microscope almost in an instant, 
dozens of times their length with the smallest 
of them, and quickly dodge out of the way of 
objects in their course like a fish, as is to be 
frequently seen in their movements, and yet 
they be only vegetable in their organization 
and functions? Is such a position tenable for 
a moment in science? 
But this is not all. In placing pure fibrin in 
a cup of distilled water to rot,there is nothing, 
of course, but these two substances in the cup. 
In case, then, ot the germs of bacteria 
getting into the cup as many claim,to be there 
developed, they find not hing there on whicn 
to feed but the pure fibrin; that is, threads, 
rods, spirals or granules (as the case may be) 
of fibrin. And as no moving forms will de- 
velop in that cup excepting such as fibrin gives 
the claims of these being bacteria, involves the 
assumption that the latter take the 
precise forms, as well as the color 
and action, of the things on which they 
feed. This is a flat contradiction of all nature 
and involves a greater absurdity, if possible, 
than the one already pointed out, of such 
extraordinary powers of volition and activity 
being possessed by forms which are vegetable 
and only vegetable in their nature. How 
grotesque would our forms be, and those of 
all the animals below us, if we assumed the 
combined forms of what we eat. Fibrin is 
iudestructible below its granular stage; and in 
reaching that stage by rotting, it exactly re- 
peats every form of the assumed bacteria, 
from bacilli down to micrococci. Hence these 
forms of fibrin being present all the way 
through the rotting process, and nothing else 
showing, they must be accounted for. Where 
are they, then, and what are they, if they be 
not these falsely assumed bacteria ? Scientists 
can never settle this question until they make 6 
full allowance for the presence of these forms 
of fibrin in all diseased conditions. 
But, however much the foregoing might be 
thought to prove, investigations were not 
stopped there. I next dissected out the cen- 
tral cord in the great tendon of the leg in a 
niud quarter of beef that had hung in the 
maikec ten days, and put that aside to rot in 
water first thoroughly boiled. Why take that 
particular part? Because, first, all tendons 
are made of fibrin; that is, they are made of a 
mass of the finest threads bound and packed 
together iu the firmest rnanper, each of such 
threads being made of a succession of fibrin- 
granules, the same as other fibrin threads. 
Second, because it is generally considered 
that the tendous show the least sensibdity that 
can be called life, of any animal structure?, 
excepting the bones. And, third, because that 
tendon had never before been exposed to the 
air to be infected with so called bacteria. 
Weli, as stated, I placed this in well-boiled 
water to rot, and watched the results. In 
twenty-four hours the granules of fibrin, 
which composed the threads that constituted 
the tendon, began to appear in great numbers; 
that is, to break off, or separate from the 
ends of such of those threads as came to the 
surface, and soon showed active motion. In 
two or three days their number had iucreased 
enormously and their activity had be 
come much greater. But, from the 
beginning of this experiment, the results 
were almost the exact opposite iu one respect 
of what they were with fresh fibrin from a 
washed clot of blood. With the latter the rods 
and spirals broke out from the threads of 
fibrin uuder rotting and appeared first, while 
the granules did not appear in great numbers 
until after the rods and spirals had broken up 
into them. With the tendon, on the contrary, 
the granules appeared in great numbers almost 
at first, and few rods showed at a >y tune. 
Why was this, if this tendon was made of 
fibrin? Why should not the results be uniform 
with fibrin from all sources? simply because 
in the tendons the threads of fibrin are so 
woven in with each other, and so firmly 
bouud together, that it is difficult to cut them 
with the sharpest knife. Fibrin washed from 
blood is, on the contrary, loose and floculent, 
and very7 easily broken up or torn to pieces. 
Hence with the former, or the tendons, the 
rotting process can only separate or disinte- 
grate the granules one after another from the 
ends of such fibers as come to the surface and 
can be thus separated; while with the loose 
fibrin, decomposition can and does reach the 
loose threads readily; and from th3 first 
breaks them up into sections or rods and spirals 
bef ire these are broken down into granules. 
There is a stranger fact still, however, in 
this matter to be explained. I have said that 
in decomposing fibrin, “there are no forms 
present, but such as fibriu gives.” Without 
explanation,those who repeat my experiments, 
will flud evidence tnat they would consider 
a positive contradiction of this assertion. 
They will see flat, oval bodies, appearing 
from an eighth to a quarter or third of an inch 
in length uuder a fourth objective, half to tvvo- 
tbirdsas wide as long, many of them some- 
what more pointed at one end than the other, 
and all of them possessed of extraordinary 
powers of volition. They are much the shape 
of the sporangia, and generally show as great 
activity as is to be seen anywhere in miscro- 
scopic animal life. Now, if the reader has a 
Carpenter’s “Human Physiology,” let him 
turn to the section on “fibrous tissues” and 
he will there find a cut showing a bundle of 
fibers of areolar, or connective tissue. In this 
cut nucleated cells are pictured, scattered all 
through the buudle, and a fe w loose ceils free 
from the fibrers are aiso shown. These nucleat- 
ed cells are an exact representation of tne oval 
bodies of which I speak. Well, these cells also 
come back to life out of dead and rotting 
fibria, as well as the rods, spirals and gran- 
ules; and their activity is as great. Whether 
those that have already been developed in con- 
nective tissue, as Carpenter pictures them, 
and have served out much or most of their 
life and purpose there, whether these come 
back to as active life as they do in the fresh 
but dead fibrin, I have not yet been able, for 
want of time, to fully prove; but the condi- 
tions call for that as much as for the gran- 
ules of fibrin in tendons coming back to life. 
This connective tissue is fibrin, or that is about 
its only food, as it is of all the tendons. 
Thus we have life out of death, or various 
living and exceedingly active forms 
out of apparently dead fibrin; even 
out of what has been thought to 
be still more lifeless tendon.?; and in such enor- 
mous numbers as only the sands upon the 
sea or the stars in the heavens can compare 
with. And thus also has been unexpectedly 
secured the first physical proof that the world 
has ever had of the immortality of life..Every 
individual human life contains an aggregation 
of thousands of millions of other individual 
lives, or what become so when the granules of 
fibrin are permitted to show their individual- 
ity, and all dominated by a superior life; just 
as a great nation is composed of many millions 
of individuals, or as humanity as a whole con- 
sists of thousands of millions of human beings. 
And this is but the carrying out in our indi- 
vidual bodies of the great principle of associa- 
tion and combination that runs through all na- 
ture. If it should be objected to all this, however, 
that no adequate purpose appears for the 
bringing back to life of all rods, spirals and 
granules of fibrin as described, one an- 
swer is that this subject is entirely new, and 
the objector cannot yet know what valid ob- 
jections to raise, until he knows far more of 
the subject tnau now, or until it is thoroughly 
studied in all its branches and bearings. But 
a more substautiat answer io that fibrin is 
indestructible, and contains most, if not all the 
vitally organizing forces of the organic world; 
hence when done with one body 
it returns under every favoring circurn- 
stariQe of decay, etc., back to its granular 
stage, to begin again at the lowest round of 
the ladder to rebuild from there, first the 
simplest life, then on and up to the highest 
lives, then back through decay to granules, 
and so on through a ceaseless round of organi- 
zation, decay and reorganization, again and 
again, through ali earthly time. Or, what is 
just as important, more important indeed to 
us individually, fibrin is contained in all our 7 
food; is decomposed, that is, disintegrated,bv 
our digestive organs, to re-enter our blood and 
tissues, and re-infuse new and fresh life into 
us continually, or daily while we live. In this 
view decomposition or disintegration is or 
becomes but a segment in the great circle of 
life, as necessary to the reinvigoration of life 
already existing, and to the creation of new 
life, gs is life itself. Decay is not, therefore, 
the limited, narrow and revolting process of 
nature that it has hitherto been looked upon as 
being; but a great necessity to the continu- 
ance of all life, and of each through its ap- 
pointed time. How much deeper significance 
this gives the subject than does the bacteria 
theory; and how much broader basis does it 
give us for a true science of evolution than 
what we have hitherto had. 
That fibrin is indestructible is a scientific 
fact that admits of no question. The elder 
Professor Silliman, over fiftv years ago. re- 
ported a Mr. Hatchet as having boiled fibrin 
five hours a day for three weeks, changing the 
water everv day, without destroyinj; it That 
greatest of all authorities on physiological 
chemistry, Professor C. Gr. Lehmann, savs, 
“it is a chemical fact that pure fibrin is in- 
capable of complete solution.” In mv own 
experiments I have never been able to destrov 
it. I still have the first sample of blood that I 
set aside to rot nine months ago under a heat 
of 100° to 200° all this time, and its granules 
are still apparently as white, pure and perfect 
as when they first began to break out from the 
threads a few days after the rotting was com- 
menced. I also have a specimen’of fibrin that 
has been digesting in chemically pure nitric 
acid six months and its granules are apparent- 
ly the same as the next day after they were 
put in the acid. Indeed, they will 
organize now into threads as readily 
as they did the hour the latter were 
disintegrated into granules. To make the test 
still more severe, I boiled fibrin many days, 
baked it for three hours, then burned it 
black, triturated that several hours, andsifted 
some of this powder into pure nitric acid 
After all this its granules were as pure and 
fresh apparently for new work as in fresh 
blood; and many of them organized into 
thread-% much as they often do in a drop of 
blood under a cover-glass. Fibrin being, there- 
fore, indestructible, that, fn itself, must have 
a great meaning; and coupling that with 
the fact that its granules have the won- 
derful powers of volition described, 
the two facts put together mean that 
such granules are, or contain, most if 
not the whole motive powers of organic 
life. 
These granules combine in numerous ways, 
more generally of course into threads and 
these into net works, but also in other forms; 
and under these combinations show marked 
attractive powers, in drawing other matter 
into their meshes, and there arranging it into 
various oreranic forms. I have certainly seen 
what appeared to be clear proof of the methods 
of cell development, and how these lower 
manifestations of combined life are started in 
their ownward course. But it will take an- 
other paper to explain this. The powers of 
motion given the granules of fibrin are what 
enables them to sefk and find their proper 
positions in organizing into threads in the 
clot tine: of blood, in building up tissues, and 
in all their other organic work. I have re- 
peatedly seen granules of fibrin in different 
fluidl, even in nitric acid, traverse a. distance 
of several times across the field of view in the 
microscope, pass many other granules, both 
single and in clusters, often come in contact 
with them, perhaps stop a. moment, then go 
on, until they would finally appear to find 
their proper place and association and there 
remain without further motion. 
Now, let it be understood that this paper is 
not the result of theorizing, or the work of 
the imagination; but is based solely upon 
what has been actually seen under the 
microscope with high powers—most of it seen 
dozens and much of it seen hundreds of times. 
So we are here dealing with realities as 
to life, and not with imagery, as has 
hitherto generallv been the case on this 
subject. Materialists have long called 
for actual demonstrable proof of the immor- 
tality of life from the advocates of that belief, 
and in the absence of such proof have demand- 
ed the latter to keep silence, while they inter- 
preted nature from a wholly material stand- 
point. Now we have such proof as cannot be 
put aside, but must be considered in all its 
length, breadth and bearings. Having thus 
shown the immortality of simple primary life, 
is it, unreasonable to ask in conclusion if the 
soul must not be immortal as well? Can it be 
possible that that almost infinitely higher de- 
velopment in us that makes our individuality, 
namely, the combination of intellect to under- 
stand such things, end of moral sentiments to 
move men to the grandest deeds for human 
good—can it be possible, I repeat, that this 
perishes, is annihilated, or simply ceases to 
exist, while mere life, or the lowest form of it 
in the granules of fibrin, is immortal? Does 
the verv highest manifestation or develop- 
ment of life, the mind, die, while the lower 
life lives? The simple asking of these questions 
seems to me their sufficient answer. 
[From the Buffalo Courier, June 15, 1884.]