140 VITALISM AND SCHOLASTICISM 



at, and to some of which allusion has been 

 made, do not afford any help in the direction 

 in question as some have thought that they 

 do. This is the second and final point, and it 

 may be clinched by quotations from two very 

 distinguished chemists. 



Roscoc Sir Henry Roscoe * says : " It is true that 



there are those who profess to foresee that the 

 day will arise when the chemist, by a succes- 

 sion of constructive efforts may pass beyond 

 albumen, and gather the elements of lifeless 

 matter into a living structure. Whatever may 

 be said of this from other standpoints, the 

 chemist can only say that at present no such 

 problem lies within his province. JProtoplasm, 

 with which the simplest manifestations of life 

 are associated, is not a compound, but a 

 structure built up of compounds. The chemist 

 may successfully synthesise any of its com- 

 ponent compounds, but he has no more reason 

 to look forward to the synthetic production of 

 the structure than to imagine that the synthesis 

 of gallic acid leads to the artificial production 

 of gallnuts." 



And a more recent utterance of the same kind 

 has been made by Professor B. Moore t when 

 speaking of " the products formed interstiti- 



* Presidential Address, Brit. Ass., 1887. 

 t Recent Advances, etc., p. 10. 



