100 BIOLOGY AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES 



organic from the inorganic. We have seen 

 already, however, that, evolution or no evolu 

 tion, there is not the remotest possibility of 

 deriving the organic from the inorganic. 

 Evolution, therefore, takes on a very different 

 significance. In tracing life back and back 

 towards what appears at first to be the in 

 organic we are not seeking to reduce the 

 organic to the inorganic, but the inorganic 

 to the organic. The apparently indefinite 

 microscopical aggregations of formless colloid 

 material 'sarcode' or * protoplasm' which 

 were at first taken for the origins of life from 

 the inorganic, have gradually turned out to 

 be definite living organisms. But biology 

 will not stop at these: for they must have 

 been evolved from something more primitive. 

 She will gradually push her advance victori 

 ously further and further into the domain of 

 the apparently inorganic. 



The premonitory signs of this advance are 

 not lacking. For nearly a century since 

 the days of John Dalton the chemical atom 

 was the ultimate term of physical and 

 chemical investigation. The world seemed 

 to be resolved into a world of atoms, in 



