ORIGIN OF LIFE 47 



mentioned ; and in addition this inherent power of 

 adaptability to host plants in such as are parasitic. 



Again, although chemical forces are active all over 

 the body, especially observable, perhaps, in the processes 

 of digestion and respiration, yet /i/e is always more or 

 less dominant, for these chemical processes cannot go 

 on if life be withdrawn. As long as life is present, 

 those bacteria which cause putrefaction are powerless, 

 though they must invade all living beings by tens of 

 thousands. 



Again many combinations of elements occur in living 

 bodies, forming substances which are never formed 

 naturally outside an organism. Life, therefore, is a 

 dominant power ordering as it were chemical combina- 

 tions to be made, which the unassisted inorganic forces 

 cannot accomplish. Materialistic Monists try to make 

 much of the fact that several vegetable products, as in- 

 digo, madder, etc., and the waste product urea of the 

 animal kingdom, can be made in the laboratory, and 

 they look forward with confidence to the time when 

 chemists will succeed in making albumen and then, at 

 last, protoplasm itself When this is done, they say, all 

 the phenomena of life will appear ; since (they assert) 

 all vital phenomena are but the results of the molecular 

 composition of substances in the body. 



But supposing protoplasm were made artificially, why 

 must it be instantly alive ? Protoplasm can be killed 

 readily enough. Dead protoplasm exists as well as living 

 protoplasm. 



But there is a still more important fact which Ma- 

 terialistic Monists completely overlook : and that is that 

 the Chemist takes the place of the Directivity of the living 

 cell, in making vegetable products ; and if the former 

 were to make protoplasm artificially, whose place does 



