THE ORIGIN OF LIFE. lg 



practically granted everywhere, and we need not 

 attempt to question the conclusion further. All of 1 

 the energy of the body is a part of the physical 

 energy of the universe, and its forces are correlated 

 with other physical forces. 



Relation of Vital Activities to Chemical Laws. 



Again, it will hardly be questioned to-day that the / 

 chemical processes going on in the living body are 

 fundamentally similar to those which may take 

 place out of the body. The same laws of chemical 

 affinity govern the changes taking place in the body 

 and those occurring in experiments in the laboratory. 

 The chemical processes of the body may be con- 

 sidered under two classes. The first are the processes 

 of construction, by which simple bodies are built into 

 complex ones. This class is chiefly found in plants. 

 The second are those of destruction, by which the 

 complex bodies are broken into simpler ones. This 

 class is chiefly characteristic of animals, though 

 found also in plants. The destructive changes are 

 the simpler, and there is no reason to think they are 

 any different from the destructive processes of the 

 laboratory. The essential feature is oxidation, ancl^ 

 oxidation may take place anywhere. It is true that 

 the details of the process of this destruction in 

 organic beings differs in some respects from that 

 which chemists have been able to simulate. WherT) 

 food is thus broken up in organisms, many decom- 

 position products arise which do not occur when the 

 process is carried on in the laboratory. These prod- 

 ucts are thus characteristic of organic beings, and it 



