THE ORIGIN OF LIFE. 21 



toward protoplasm, To be sure, they have not yet 

 climbed very far, but they have made some advance. 

 Many of the simpler members of the series have 

 been manufactured synthetically from simple inor-. 

 ganic compounds. And since they have truly begun*"* 

 to ascend through this series, it is, of course, an easy 

 inference to predict that they will some day reach 

 the top and be able to make the higher members, 

 even protoplasm itself. In theory they already tell 

 us what the albumens are chemically, and expect to 

 be able to make them synthetically before a great 

 while ; indeed, at the present time chemists are 

 startled by the recent announcement of the manu- 

 facture of a proteid in the laboratory of Schutzen- 

 berger. Scientists are thus looking forward to the 

 time when they will be able to make protoplasm in 

 the laboratory, and thus artificially to make living 

 things. Judging from the general tendency of ad- 

 vance, it does not perhaps seem improbable that 

 they may some time make a body which shall 

 have the chemical composition of protoplasm ; but 

 whether or not this body would be alive is the very 

 question at issue. 



Of course it is perfectly evident that the methods 

 used by the chemist in these syntheses are very 

 different from those employed by living cells. The 

 chemist uses complicated apparatus and long, round- 

 about processes to produce the simple organic com- 

 pounds. A transparent and seemingly structureless 

 mass of protoplasm builds directly and with ease the 

 most complicated bodies. No one will, of course, 

 pretend to compare the organic cell with the chem- 



