602 THE OUTLOOK 



The goal of the biological sciences has been stated by J. Loeb to be 

 the artificial creation of living matter. To this, too, we dare not 

 ascribe impossibility, but its attainment seems at present to be almost 

 certainly more distant than any of the objectives we have hitherto 

 reviewed; for our increasing knowledge of life-phenomena reveals to 

 us more and more clearly that the processes of life are wrapped up, 

 not merely with a peculiar admixture of unstable chemical compounds, 

 but also with a definite architectural arrangement of these compounds. 

 The simplest living organism with which we are acquainted possesses 

 a definite structure, and even supposing our knowledge of the chemistry 

 of life to have become so exhaustive as to permit the precise imitation 

 of the chemical constitution of living matter, its structural constitution 

 would still remain an incentive to investigation and an obstacle, but 

 not an insuperable one, to the attainment of our ultimate goal. 



The slow, hesitating, clinging grasp of science, like that of the many- 

 ten tacled denizens of the sea, cannot be loosened or evaded. Through 

 many trials and failures, let the superficial appearance which hides the 

 precious truth be as polished and impenetrable-seeming as it may, a 

 flaw will be found, a foothold gained, and atom by atom, through 

 centuries if need be, the very heart of mystery is unveiled. There is 

 not, nor ever can be in our universe, anything which directly or in- 

 directly can be made to assail the senses of man, that his intellect 

 cannot ultimately fit into the supreme architecture of the mind, and 

 there is not, nor ever can be, one thing which the intellect of man fully 

 comprehends which he cannot in some measure appropriate and employ 

 for the direction of his own destinies. But in what way will we employ 

 these powers? That, indeed, is a riddle to which science can furnish 

 no solution; its answer lies hidden from our senses, in the deepest 

 recesses of the moral nature of man; but the responsibility for the 

 choice, whatever it may be, rests not with the scientific discoverer, 

 save only in the degree to which he shares our common humanity. 



