THE ORIGIN OF LIFE: A CHEMIST'S FANTASY 323 



cesses ; while believing that, as he says, " we may fairly 

 conclude that all changes in living substance are brought 

 about by ordinary chemical and physical forces " and that 

 "at the best, vitalism explains nothing," I am in no way 

 prepared to underrate the difficulties before us in finding 

 satisfactory explanations of the Origin of Life. 



I see no reason to suppose that life may be originating 

 de novo at the present time nor do I believe that we shall 

 ever succeed in effecting the synthesis of living matter. 



With regard to Prof. Moore's statement that all the actions 

 of the cell are concerned with the liberation of energy and its 

 transformation into many forms — there is nothing to show that 

 the forms of energy that are operative during life are in any 

 way peculiar. Energy is inherent in matter : apparently its 

 primary form is that known to us as electrical energy ; and 

 inasmuch as Faraday's dictum that chemical affinity and elec- 

 tricity are forms of the same power is incontrovertible, more- 

 over as electricity in its passage through matter is frittered 

 down into heat, the mechanical effects associated with life 

 are easily accounted for. As to the origin of consciousness 

 and of psychical phenomena generally, we know nothing — at 

 most we can assert that we are conscious of consciousness. 

 The effects of consciousness may well be the outcome of 

 simple mechanical displacements of molecules such as take 

 place in the steel tape previously referred to in its passage 

 across a magnetic field varying in intensity. If nervous im- 

 pulses are conveyed not along continuous tracts but through 

 the agency of interdigitating fibres, a mere alteration in the 

 lengths of these fibres would condition a variation of the 

 impulse ; the actual conductivity of a continuous fibre would 

 vary also if chemical changes were to take place within its 

 substance. It is easy to see how chemical changes occurring 

 within a nerve or muscle cell would involve an alteration in 

 the osmotic state, which would necessarily be followed by the 

 influx or efflux of water, according as the alteration involved 

 an increase or diminution of the number ot molecules in 

 solution. Oscillatory hydraulic changes of this type may well 

 be at the bottom of both nervous and muscular activity in the 

 organism ; in fact, there is every reason to believe that we are 

 but hydraulic engines. 



