LIFE, CARBON'S OUTSTANDING PROPERTY 79 



deal of evidence; for only the carbon compounds are known 

 to have that diversified character, that faculty of rapid 

 change from one kind of substance to another that makes 

 life possible. Hence, it seems justifiable to suppose that 

 those enzymes which set up chemical changes leading to a 

 production of the enzyme itself, can be nothing other than 

 carbon compounds. 



9. HISTORICAL REMARKS ON THE PROBLEM OF ARTIFICIAL 



GENERATION OF LIFE 



The artificial creation of life has always aroused the 

 imagination of thinking men, but is usually regarded as too 

 fantastic for serious consideration. At the age of the Ren- 

 aissance about 500 years ago, when new and startling dis- 

 coveries were made, a belief arose that the creation of life 

 might be a comparatively easy matter. Had it not been 

 possible to transform various kinds of matter into some- 

 thing entirely different? Did not sulfuric acid or nitric 

 acid transform a brilliant shiny metal into a salt-like mate- 

 rial? Did not heat and carbon produce brilliant shiny 

 metals from the dull ores? Had not "liquid silver" (mer- 

 cury) been obtained from certain ores in a similar fashion? 



The explanations offered 500 years ago for such trans- 

 formations were confused and contradictory. Thus the 

 pure metals were regarded as compounds of the naturally 

 occurring ores with the mystical "phlogiston," which ac- 

 tually does not exist. In reality the metals are elements. 

 When mercury was obtained from ores, the explanation 

 was that some sort of liquefying agent had been infused into 

 the ore. Why then should it not be possible, it was argued, 

 to imbue lifeless matter with the "breath of life?" 



Such arguments, after lengthy discussion, finally took on 

 the character of fairy tales. An example is the story of the 

 magic Dr. Faustus, a fabulous alchemist, who was said to 

 have obtained a small human being, the "homunculus," 



