120 The Bible of Nature 



to what the component parts have contributed, 

 though we do not know how. At the same time 

 in postulating possible processes which may have 

 occurred long ago in Nature's laboratory, it is al- 

 ways desirable that we should be able to back 

 these up with evidence of analogous processes now 

 occurring in Nature — the usual mode of argument 

 in evolutionist discourse — but these analogues are 

 not forthcoming at present. It is usual to refer 

 to the achievements of the synthetic chemist, who 

 can now manufacture artificially such natural 

 organic products as urea, alcohol, grape sugar, 

 indigo, oxalic acid, tartaric acid, salicylic acid, 

 and caffeine. But four facts should be borne in 

 mind: (1) the directive agency of the intelligent 

 chemist is aii essential factor in these syntheses; 



(2) no one supposes that a living organism makes 

 its organic compounds in the way in which many 

 of these can be made in the chemical laboratory; 



(3) no one has yet come near the artificial synthe- 

 sis of proteids, which are the most characteristic 

 substances in living matter; and (4) there is a great 

 gap between making organic matter and making 

 an organism. When Kekule spoke of looking for- 

 ward to the time when we shall ''build up the for- 

 mative elements of living organisms " in the labo- 

 ratory, he probably had the distinction between the 

 organism and its several component substances 

 quite clearly in mind. 



