BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS 119 



the constituents of either plant or animal. In 

 fact, the processes of the laboratory have not 

 the remotest resemblance to those which must 

 be assumed to go on in living tissue. The 

 chemist can take carbon and hydrogen and by 

 the aid of a high temperature can make them 

 to combine to produce ethylene. From ethy- 

 lene he can build up tartaric acid by a series 

 of steps which, however, require the use of 

 chlorine or bromine. The grape vine also manu- 

 factures tartaric acid, but it uses neither a high 

 temperature nor a halogen " (i.e., an element 

 of the group to which the two above-named 

 bodies belong). Again, after discussing Moore's 

 observations on formaldehyde : " We may 

 even go farther and suppose that, by a series 

 of changes the nature of which cannot now 

 even be conjectured, a complex colloidal pro- 

 tein was actually formed. We may in the 

 present state of knowledge safely inquire 

 What then? No chemist will be induced to 

 believe that a pulpy mass of one or more 

 aminoacids, no matter how complex or how 

 associated with saline electrolytes, will cease 

 to exhibit the characters which belong to 

 chemical compounds in general, and acquire 

 of its ' own mere motion ' the power of utilising 

 and controlling energy supplied from external 

 sources in such a way as to give rise to the 



