534 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



from the solution and the crystal will grow. It is not unlikely that 

 a substance may exercise attraction over molecules which are its own 

 proximate constituents — that glucose, for example, may exercise a 

 preferential attraction over molecules of formaldehyde; if such be 

 the case, glucose may itself serve to influence and promote the forma- 

 tion of glucose from formaldehyde. 



Granting such a possibility, if by some accident right-hand mole- 

 cules preponderated in a solution in which the conditions were favor- 

 able to the synthesis of new molecules, the influence of pattern would 

 prevail and a larger proportion of right-hand material would be 

 formed. In course of time the left-hand material would die out and 

 only right-hand material would be present — as in the world to-day. 

 The argument is applicable to compounds generally. 



Even the formation of enzymes may be accounted for. Under the 

 influence of acid or alkali, colloid particles may well have entered 

 into association with this or that group. But when once formed 

 fortuitously enzymes probably would become the models or templates 

 upon which new molecules would be formed, much after the manner 

 of the dressmaker's model upon which the dress bodice is fashioned.' 



But it will be said, "Granted even that simple substances can 

 be formed in such ways, surely it is impossible to account for the 

 production of protoplasm." No doubt, this is difficult, especially 

 as the thmg we are asked to account for can not be defined. I am 

 tempted here again to quote Epictetus: 



WTience then shall we make a beginning? If you vdW consider this with me, I 

 shall say first that you must attend to the sense of words. 



So I do not now understand them? 



You do not. 



How then do I use them? 



As the unlettered use written words or as cattle use appearances; for the use is 

 one thing and understanding another. But if you think you understand, then take 

 my word you will and let us try ourselves whether we understand it. 



The word "protoplasm" means so little to most people, so much 

 to a few. It is the convenient cloak of an appalhng amount of 

 ignorance — perhaps the scientific equivalent of the "Don't fidget, 

 child," addressed to the too inquiring 3^oungster or the biological 

 paraphrase of the older chemist's catalytic action. 



Is protoplasm one or many things? A medium or a substance. 

 In saying that, "Living substance or protoplasm takes the form of a 

 coUoidal solution. In this solution the coUoids are associated with 

 crystalloids wliich are either free in the solution or attached to the 

 molecules of the colloids," Prof. Schiifcr scarcely helps us to a defi- 

 nition. Nor are his later suggestions much more helpful. Speak- 

 ing of the differential septum by which hving substance is usually 

 surrounded, he says, "This film serves the purpose of an osmotic 



