BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS 77 



has certainly no more chance of success in his 

 endeavours than Wagner, in Goethe's ' Faust/ had 

 of brewing a Homunculus in his retort." 



Professor B. Moore, whose knowledge of bio- 

 chemistry renders him a peculiarly valuable witness 

 on this point, shall conclude the list. He says : l 

 " The mode of production of living matter is char- 

 acteristic, and cannot be brought about by the 

 action solely of inorganic forms of energy. Living 

 matter is produced only by the action of other 

 living matter upon the materials and forms of 

 energy of the non-living world. In the process the 

 matter involved is built up into substances of great 

 chemical complexity, and it has been supposed that 

 this is the essential portion of the process of pro- 

 duction of a living structure ; but it must be noted 

 that even this very production of complexity of 

 structure from simple inorganic bodies at the ex- 

 pense of the energy of the solar rays take place and 

 can only take place in a living structure itself. 

 The very building up of the machine or transformer 

 in which the manifestations of biotic energy are 

 subsequently to take place is then a cogent argu- 

 ment that here we are dealing with a type of energy 

 which is not met with elsewhere. For nowhere 

 else in Nature does a similar process appear to that 

 of the production of living structure, and by no 

 1 Op. cit., p. 7, 



