THE LI y ING SUBSTANCE 9 



In consequence of the complexity of the living cell, 

 it would be necessary to construct not one substance, 

 but a whole series of them, and then put them together 

 in such a way as to construct a living machine. 



7. Suppose we could construct a cell, in all respects Cessation 

 like that of a living organism : would it be endowed iv jti 

 with life ? Could our scientific Pygmalion expect to 

 see his Galatea live ? No certain answer can be given 

 to this question, but there are reasons for suggesting 

 the affirmative. Experiments have been made, in 

 which seeds and spores have been kept for considerable 

 periods at the extremely low temperatures known to 

 modern physicists, temperatures at which the very 

 air is liquefied. It is to be supposed that at these 

 temperatures all life activities, however subtle, must 

 stop ; the machine is absolutely at a standstill. In 

 spite of this, on the return to normal conditions, 

 vitality is unimpaired. This being the case, we may 

 probably argue with reason that the extremely low 

 temperature which inhibits all change would, if main- 

 tained, preserve the material indefinitely, leaving it 

 ready at any time to take up life activities when 

 suitably warmed and moistened. Such permanent 

 cold storage would be found in the vast abysses of 

 space, where conceivably minute spores might cir- 

 culate for ages, until they chanced to fall upon a suit- 

 able planet. In some such way the earth may have 

 received its life ; but if so, we are still no nearer to 

 solving the problem of the origin of life itself. 



8. The physics of the cell is no less interesting than Colloidal 

 the chemistry. Protoplasm is said to be a colloid 

 (from the word kolla, meaning "glue" in Greek), a 

 name given to substances which diffuse slowly in 

 liquids and do not form true solutions as do crystalloids, 



