ON CATAGENESIS. 431 



inorganic matter, tlie liydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen 

 contained in the atmosphere and in the earth. As dead j)lants 

 will not perform this function, this action is regarded as in some 

 way due to the presence of life. The energy peculiar to living pro- 

 toplasm, and derived primarily in part only from the sun's rays, 

 directs energy so that the complex molecular aggregation proto- 

 plasm is the result. This is the only known method of manufact- 

 ure from inorganic matter of this substance. The first piece of 

 protoplasm had, however, no paternal protoplasm from which to 

 derive its being. The protoplasm-producing energy must, there- 

 fore, have previously existed in some form of matter not proto- 

 plasm. This is also suggested by the fact that it really antagonizes 

 the chemical forces, and might be called, from this fact, antichem.' 

 ism. The protoplasm-sustaining energy of animal protoplasm 

 may be a less energetic derivative, or vice versa. In terms of the 

 theory of catagenesis, the plant life is a derivative of the primi- 

 tive life, and it has retained enough of the primitive quality of 

 self-maintenance to prevent it from running down into forms of 

 energy w^hich are below the life level ; that is, such as are of the 

 inorganic chemical type, or the crystalline physical type. A part 

 of the energy does so run down, as can be seen in the few auto- 

 matic movements of plants, and the phosphorescence of some. 

 Also symmetrical crystals are made by some. But M. Pasteur 

 has shown * that whenever the crystals are of the organic type, 

 i. e., contain carbon, they are not symmetrical but are unilateral, 

 or, as he terms them, dissymmetrical. This indicates that the 

 presence of carbon has restrained a little the absolute symmet- 

 rical automatism of the formative force. 



IV. ORIGIN" OF LIFE ON THE EARTH. 



If, then, some form of matter other than protoj^lasm has been 

 capable of sustaining the essential energy of life, it remains for 

 future research to detect it, and to ascertain whether it has long 

 existed as part of the earth's material substance or not. The 

 heat of the earlier stages of our planet may have forbidden its 

 presence, or it may not. If it were excluded from the earth in 

 its first stages we may recognize the validity of Sir William 

 Thomson's suggestion that the physical basis of life may have 

 reached us from some other region of the cosmos by transporta- 



' Revue Scicntifique," 1884, Jan., p. 2. 



