THE OKIGIN OF LIFE ARMSTRONG." 539 



Here again I am served by the old Greek cynic, "The beginning of 

 philosophy, at least \vith those who lay hold of it as they ought, is 

 the consciousness of their own feebleness and incajjacity in respect of 

 necessary things." Such sayings make us wonder at the lack of 

 appreciation displayed by the sage of Chelsea in making Sartor say, 

 "The 'Enchiridion of Epictetus' I had ever with me, often as my 

 sole companion, and regret to mention that the nourishment it 

 yielded was trifling." But he too was a philosopher. 



After telling us that the cell is now defined as a vital unit con- 

 sisting of an individual mass of the living substance protoplasm 

 containing at least one nucleus; and that the protoplasm of an ordi- 

 nary cell is differentiated into two distinct components — the cyto- 

 plasm or bodyi^lasm and the nucleus — Prof. Minchin raises the ques- 

 tion whether the cytoplasm or the nucleus is to be regarded as the 

 more primitive. He can not conceive, he says, that the earliest 

 livmg creature could have come into existence as a complex cell, 

 with nucleus and cytoplasm distinct and separate; and he is forced 

 to believe that a condition in which a living body consisted only of 

 one form or type of living matter preceded that in which the body 

 consisted of two or more structural components. 



The issue tluis raised is an important one. RegarcUng the cell 

 as the vital imit, as "the simplest protoplasmic organ wliich is 

 capable of hving alone, " in other words, capable of growing and of 

 reproducing itself, the question I venture to put is whether fife did 

 not begin only when the cell was first constituted, whether tlie 

 materials formed prior to tliis period, however complex, were not all 

 incoordinated and therefore inanimate. 



The term "cell " unfortunately has had somewhat cUfferent meanings 

 attached to it. At first, as Prof. Minchin tells us, only the Hmiting 

 membrane or cell wall was thought of, the fluid or viscous contents 

 being regarded as of secondary importance; the primary meaning, 

 in fact, was that of a httle box or capsule. It then became apparent 

 that the fluid contents were the essential living part, tlie cell wall 

 merely an adaptive product of the contained living substance or 

 protoplasm. Consequently the cell was defined as a small mass or 

 corpuscle of the living substance, wliich might either surround itself 

 with a cell wall or remain naked and without any ])rotective envelope. 

 Further advance involved the recognition of a nucleus as an essential 

 component of the cell. 



I can not think of a naked mass of protoplasm, call it chromatin 

 (stainable substance) or what you will, playing the part of an organism; 

 at most I imagine it would function as yeast zymase functions. 



If it is to grow and be reproduced, the nuclear material must be 

 shut up along with the appropriate food materials and such con- 



