THE PHANTOMS BEHIND US 



Mars. It must be and must have always been po- 

 tential in matter, but this fact leaves the mystery 

 as profound as ever. 



Yet if the artificial production of life were to 

 happen to-day — if in some of our laboratories liv- 

 ing matter were produced from non-living, should 

 we not still have to credit the event to some mysteri- 

 ous potency residing in matter itself.^ If by a lucky 

 stroke man were to evoke the organic from the inor- 

 ganic, be assured he would not evoke something 

 from nothing, or add anything to the latent possi- 

 bilities of the elements with which he works. Does 

 not the question still remain who or what made this 

 feat possible .f^ One dare affirm that man cannot cre- 

 ate life de novo any more than he can create matter. 

 He may yet evoke life as he evokes the spark from 

 the flint and the flame from the match or as he 

 evokes force from the food he eats. In this latter case 

 he does not create the force; he liberates it through 

 the vital forces of his body. The spark from the flint 

 and the flame from the match were called forth by a 

 mechanical process, but the process was set going 

 by the will which waits upon the vital process. The 

 body with all its many functions is a complicated 

 system of mechanical devices and chemical pro- 

 cesses, but that which is back of all and governs all 

 is not mechanical ; the body is a machine plus some- 

 thing else. 



The chemist or biologist who shall produce a 



209 



