IX] OF MOLECULAR. ASYMMETRY 419 



that the formation of some new substance or other, under the 

 influence of light so polarised, will proceed asymmetrically in 

 consonance with the asymmetry of the light itself ; or conversely, 

 that the asymmetrically polarised light will tend to more rapid 

 decomposition of those molecules by which it is chiefly absorbed. 

 This latter proof is now said to be furnished by Byk*, who asserts 

 that certain tartrates become unsymmetrical under the continued 

 influence of the asymmetric rays. Here then we seem to have 

 an example, of a particular kind and in a particular instance, an 

 example limited but yet crucial {if confirmed), of an asymmetric- 

 force, non- vital in its origin, which might conceivably be the 

 starting-point of that asymmetry which is characteristic of so 

 many organic products. 



The mysteries of organic chemistry are great, and the differences 

 between its processes or reactions as they are carried out in the 

 organism and in the laboratory are many f. The actions, catalytic 

 and other, which go on in the living cell are of extraordinary 

 complexity. But the contention that they are different in kind 

 from what we term ordinary chemical operations, or that in the 

 production of single asymmetric compounds there is actually to 

 be witnessed, as Pasteur maintained, a "prerogative of life," 

 would seem to be no longer safely tenable. And furthermore, it 

 behoves us to remember that, even though failure continued to 

 attend all artificial attempts to originate the asymmetric or 

 optically active compounds which organic nature produces in 

 abundance, this would only prove that a certain 'physical force, or 

 mode of physical action, is at work among hving things though 

 unknown elsewhere. It is a mode of action which we can easily 

 imagine, though the actual mechanism we cannot set agoing when 

 we please. And it follows that such a difference between hving 

 matter and dead would carry us but a little way, for it would still 

 be confined strictly to the physical or mechanical plane. 



Our historic interest in the whole question is increased by the 



* Byk, A., Zur Frage der Spaltbarkeit von Razemverbindungen durch Zirkulai- 

 polarisiertes Licht, ein Beitrag zur primaren Entstehung optisch-activer Substanzen, 

 Zeitsch.f. j)hysikal. Chemie. xlix, p. 641, 1904. It must be admitted that further 

 positive evidence on these Unes is still awanting. 



t Cf. (int. al.) Emil Fischer, U niersuchungen ilber Aminosduren, Proteine, etc. 

 Berlin, 1906. 



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