ORIGIN OF LIFE 4I 



an isolated position in the vegetable kingdom. They 

 are, perhaps, the most nearly related to the group of 

 Rhizopods in the animal kingdom. They live in and on 

 organic remains, especially rotten wood and leaves, etc. 

 They are without chlorophyll, consisting of masses of 

 protoplasm without cell wall (Plasmodia)!' ^ 



Dr. Vines has lately investigated the physiology of 

 the yeast-plant, Saccharoniyces Cerevisice ; and drew atten- 

 tion to the remarkable fact that though this plant consists 

 of but a single minute cell, it is known to produce a variety 

 of enzymes or ferments ; diastase, that converts starch 

 into sugar ; invertine, that splits cane-sugar into glucose 

 and fructose ; glucase, that converts maltose into glucose ; 

 zymase, that decomposes glucose into alcohol and carbon 

 dioxide ; as well as an undefined ^myv^Q, protease, which 

 digests proteid matter. 



There is nothing — .any more than with slime-fungi 

 or bacteria — to enable it to live on mineral food alone; 

 nor are any of these enzymes known in the inorganic 

 world. 



Lankester (article " Protozoa ") says : " A conceivable 

 state of things is that a vast amount of albuminoids and 

 other such compounds had been brought into existence 

 by those processes which culminated in the development 

 of the first protoplasm ; and it seems, therefore, likely 

 enough that the first protoplasm fed upon these ante- 

 cedent steps in its own evolution just as animals feed on 

 organic compounds at the present day, more especially 

 as the large creeping plasmodia of some Mycetozoa feed 

 on vegetable refuse ". 



It will be observed that the question of the origin of 

 life is not solved, but only pushed further back ; for 



1 Systematic Botany (Warming and Potter), p. 5. 



