THE INTERPRETATION OF LIFE 383 



separate formula but from a restricted number of formulae, from 

 which differentiation has occurred. This would follow from the 

 fact that the known inorganic constituents of life are not very 

 numerous and it would undoubtedly have been from them that 

 nature drew in the original synthesis. If the germinative pro- 

 perties of the inorganic were proved, we should have to regard 

 the elements mainly concerned in the constitution of living sub- 

 stance as life-elements or rather as those from which the recon- 

 structive combinations must be made. If it were possible to 

 analyse living protoplasm chemically, we should probably 

 possess a key to the synthetic reconstruction with these 

 materials and with others which the analysis might reveal. 

 But the means have not yet been found for doing this. The 

 agents used in chemical analysis kill life and until a new method 

 of investigation is devised the ignorance in which we are at pre- 

 sent must continue. Living protoplasm, moreover, is not a 

 static substance. It is in constant process of change. It varies 

 qualitatively and quantitatively at every instant of existence. 

 But if the original protoplasm or protoplasms were an effect of 

 terrestrial chemistry and did not descend to us from another 

 sphere, as one hypothesis supposed, we might perhaps expect 

 that the earth should show at least some sign of this reproductive 

 power. We might anticipate that the cooled earth's crust should 

 produce some constantly evolving, semi-vital substance different 

 from ordinary matter. That substance possibly is radium which 

 the earth is constantly producing and which may not incon- 

 ceivably contain germinative properties in itself. For this sub- 

 stance not only " lives and dies " but while active possesses 

 extraordinary powers of diffusion and of penetration. It is 

 possible that more elements may yet be discovered which will 

 vary still more from the previously known constituents of the 

 planet. 



Even if it were proved that the objects hitherto produced 

 in the laboratory were due to effects of crystallisation or 

 fermentation of organic materials and that their reproductivity 

 was thus to be accounted for, it is still certain that living things 

 are constituted out of the same matter as the earth and that 

 therefore it is not illegitimate to seek to reproduce them from 

 that matter. 



If some attempts to do so fail, that is no argument that all are 



