154 The Ottawa Naturalist. [March 



Unless we are advanced students of psychical research 

 we will agree that the force called life manifests itself only 

 through the medium of matter. Protoplasm has the distinction 

 of being the only kind of matter, in which life makes itself evident. 

 We cannot avoid desiring to know what is the real nature of 

 this vital force, and what is its origin. These questions are yet 

 to be answered to the satisfaction of all. Those who desire to 

 reduce all phenomena to known chemical and physical changes, 

 reason as follows: Life is made evident by the production of 

 energy. Energy is obtained from matter by chemical changes in 

 the matter for example, we thus get heat, electricity, explosions, 

 etc. The greatest and most continuous manifestations of energy 

 come from the substances which are the least stable. Such sub- 

 stances as protoplasm are notably unstable, and chemical changes 

 accompanied by energy changes are constantly going on in 

 protoplasm. Life is the summation or resultant of all these changes. 

 But can this be true? We may easily so act upon protoplasm 

 that the life in it is destroyed, and yet it is protoplasm, and 

 chemical changes go on rapidly in it. But these changes do not 

 constitute life. They soon result in the destruction of the 

 protoplasm. It therefore seems that the relation of life to 

 chemical changes in protoplasm is rather a directive one life 

 being a power capable of controlling and deciding the kinds of 

 chemical change which may occur in protoplasm. Huxley 

 clearly set forth the difference between living and non-living 

 matter in his famous definition- "Living matter is distinguished 

 by its continual disintegration by oxidation, and its concomitant 

 reintegration by the intussusception of new matter." Just so! 

 Non-living protoplasm is also continually "disintegrated by 

 oxidation," but there is no "concomitant intussusception of new 

 matter." And so the dead protoplasm is gradually consumed. 

 An alternative explanation of the origin of life is that it was 

 "breathed into" protoplasm from some Source of Life outside 

 the protoplasm. This statement, although apparently not 

 scientific, has the advantage of being more diffirult to disprove 

 chemicallv, than any of the chemical explanations at present 

 offered. 



Whatever may have been the origin of protoplasm or of the 

 life force within it giving it sensation, mobility, power of growth 

 and of reproduction, there can he no doubt of the present 

 existence of minute masses of protoplasm having these properties. 

 The conditions in which this first protoplasm lived were probably 

 warmth, moisture and possibly light. Only in the presence of 

 some moisture, and a moderate temperature will life continue 

 active in protoplasm. The source of heat in the primitive world 

 was probably the cooling crust of the earth, but eventually light 



