THE LIVING MACHINE BUILDING FACTORS. 177 



and assimilation are chemical processes resulting 

 from the oxidation of food, and that thus all of 

 these processes are to be reduced to chemical 

 forces. In this way we may seem to have a 

 chemical foundation for life phenomena. But 

 clearly this is far from satisfactory. In the first 

 place, it utterly fails to explain why the living cell 

 has these properties, while no other body possesses 

 them, nor why they are possessed by living pro- 

 toplasms alone, ceasing instantly with death. In- 

 deed it does not tell us what death can be. Sec- 

 ondly, it utterly fails to explain the marvels of 

 cell division with resulting hereditary transmis- 

 sion. For all this we must fall back upon the 

 structure of protoplasm, and say that the cell ma- 

 chinery is so adjusted that the machine, when 

 acting as a whole, is capable of transforming the 

 energy of chemical composition in certain direc- 

 tions. These fundamental properties are then the 

 properties of the cell machine just as surely as 

 printing is the property of the printing press. 

 We can no more account for the life phenomena 

 by chemical powers than we can for printing by 

 chemical forces manifested in the burning of the 

 coal in the engine room. To be sure, it is the 

 chemical forces in the engine room that furnishes 

 the energy, but it is the machinery of the press 

 that explains the printing. So, while chemical 

 forces supply life energy, it is the cell machinery 

 that must explain the fundamental living factors. 

 So long as this machine is intact it can continue 

 to run and perform its duties. But it is a very 

 delicate machine and is easily broken. When it 

 is broken its activities cease. A broken machine 

 can not run. It is dead. In short, we come back 

 once more to the idea of the machinery of pro- 



