142 THE CASE AGAINST EVOLUTION 



that is, to a complex polyphasic colloidal system, but this 

 power of perpetual division and orderly assortment pos- 

 sessed by the cell as a whole and by its single components 

 is the unique property of the living protoplasmic system, 

 and is never found in any of the colloidal systems known 

 to physical chemistry, be they organic or inorganic. 



Cells, then, originate solely by division of preexistent cells 

 and even the minor components of the cellular system origi- 

 nate in like fashion, namely: by division of their respective 

 counterparts in the preexistent living cell. Here we have 

 the sum and substance of the fivefold law of genetic con- 

 tinuity, whose promulgation has relegated the hypothesis of 

 spontaneous generation to the realms of empty speculation. 

 Waiving the possibility of an a 'priori argument, by which 

 abiogenesis might be positively excluded, there remains this 

 one consideration, which alone is scientifically significant, 

 that, so far as observation goes and induction can carry us, 

 the living cell has absolute need of a vital origin and can 

 never originate by the exclusive agency of the physico- 

 chemical forces native to inorganic matter. If organic life 

 exists in simpler terms than the cell, science knows nothing 

 of it, and no observed process, simple or complicated, of 

 inorganic nature, nor any artificial synthesis of the labora- 

 tory, however ingenious, has ever succeeded in duplicating 

 the wonders of the simplest living cell. 



§ 3. Chemical Theories of the Ori^n of Life 



In fact, the very notion of a chemical synthesis of living 

 matter is founded on a misconception. It would, indeed, be 

 rash to set limits to the chemist's power of synthesizing 

 organic compounds, but living protoplasm is not a single 

 chemical compound. Rather it is a complex system of com- 

 pounds, enzymes and organelles, coordinated and integrated 

 into an organized whole by a persistent principle of unity 

 and finality. Organic life, to say nothing at all of its unique 

 dynamics^ is a morphological as well as a chemical problem; 



