38 Can Science Explain Life! 



Carbonyl carbon to carbonyl carbon; 

 Carbonyl carbon to alpha carbon; 

 Alpha carbon to alpha carbon. 



Any of the above unions, except those which 

 involve direct connections between nitrogen and 

 nitrogen or between nitrogen and oxygen, would 

 be chemically stable, but their stability alone does 

 not prove that they exist in nature. Protoplasmic 

 materials have not resulted from a promiscuous 

 mixture of the elements, but from an orderly and 

 systematic process of evolution in which only 

 those configurations have survived which have 

 conformed to the dominating influence of the 

 spirazines. It appears from the chemical struc- 

 tures of the various protoplasmic decomposition 

 products that only the following unions between 

 adjacent spirazines occur in nature : 



(1) Direct union of amino nitrogen to car- 

 bonyl carbon, as evidenced by the urea and 

 guanidine complexes; 



(2) Direct union of alpha carbon to alpha 

 carbon, as evidenced by aspartic acid (doubt- 

 ful); 



(3) Indirect union of alpha carbon to alpha 

 carbon by means of one, two, or three — CH 2 — 

 groups, as evidenced by glutamic acid, argi- 

 nine, and ornithine, respectively. 



