IN THE BEGINNING 67 



" residual affinity," even after their primary combination 

 would tend to increase in chemical complexity. It would 

 be absurd to attempt to retrace all the steps, but the 

 evolution of protoplasm along these lines is conceivable. 

 But there is another conjecture to be taken into account. 



A German physiologist, Pfliiger, noticed that compounds 

 containing cyanogen had the closest resemblance to living 

 matter. Cyanogen is a compound of carbon and nitrogen 

 (bicarbide of nitrogen), and a peculiar feature of it is that 

 the mere mixture of these elements never produces it ; they 

 must be brought together at an intense heat. Pfliiger at 

 once reverted to the fact that our earth began its career in a 

 state of incandescence. Why may not vast quantities of 

 cyanogen, or cyanic compounds, have been produced at 

 that time? Here would be a very plausible basis for the 

 gradual upbuild of protoplasm. It must not be supposed 

 that nature went steadily ahead in its manufacture. A 

 thousand other compounds might be formed at hazard, just 

 as thousands of animal forms have been produced that did 

 not persist. The compounds that lay in the direction of 

 plasm were the more stable and absorptive or reproductive. 

 The cyanic compounds would unite easily with carbon 

 compounds, and afterwards with water. At last a compound 

 would be created, of which the molecules clung together in 

 small groups. With their high power of imbibition they 

 would grow and swell from their common centre, then split 

 up, or detach fragments from themselves, when a convenient 

 limit of size was reached. Metabolism would be a chemical 

 and physical outcome of their texture (we have it "in the 



