PART II. 



THE BUILDING OF THE LI VI NO MACHINE. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE FACTORS CONCERNED IN THE BUILDING OF 

 THE LIVING MACHINE. 



HAVING now outlined the results of our study 

 into the mechanism of the living machine, we 

 turn our attention next to the more difficult 

 problem of the method by which this machine 

 was built. From the facts which we have been 

 considering in the last two chapters it is evident 

 that the problem we have before us is a mechan- 

 ical rather than a chemical one. Of course, 

 chemical forces lie at the bottom of vital activity, 

 and we must look upon the force of chemical 

 affinity as the fundamental power to which the 

 problems must be referred. But a chemical 

 explanation will evidently not suffice for our 

 purpose; for we have absolutely no reason for 

 believing that the phenomena of life can occur 

 as the results of the chemical properties of any 

 compound, however complex. The simplest 

 known form of matter which manifests life is a 

 machine, and the problem of the origin of life 

 must be of the origin of that machine. Are there 



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