THE ORIGIN OF LIFE: A CHEMIST'S FANTASY 329 



improbable that such verification will be possible. But specula- 

 tion is none the less legitimate and desirable on account of the 

 fundamental issues to be considered. 



In discussing the problems of heredity, in dealing with disease, 

 we are groping in the dark so long as we are ignorant of the 

 precise nature of the vital processes and of the minute details of 

 organic structure ; no effort should be spared therefore to unravel 

 these. The results of modern cytological inquiry are very 

 marvellous but unsatisfactory. We need to know far more of 

 living material, especially in the vegetative stage ; the chemist 

 has difficulty in accepting the findings of the morphologist at 

 their face value, he cannot avoid the feeling that not a few of the 

 " structures " described may be artefacts bearing but a distant 

 resemblance to the living forms, as structure is usually brought 

 into evidence by staining and this cannot take place until the 

 differential septa of cells are broken down and rendered perme- 

 able ; so that the staining and fixing process is one that must be 

 attended with chemical changes, among which coagulation effects 

 are to be reckoned. But the appearances in many cases are too 

 definite, too wonderful, to be mere artefacts. 



What is now needed is the combination of the eyes of the 

 cytologist with those of the chemist and with those of the physio- 

 logist, the collaboration of the student of external structure and 

 the student of function. Continued specialisation can only carry 

 us further away from the goal we are all striving at, though 

 vaguely — because we have no settled combined scheme of action. 



H. E. A. 



