64 LIFE IN NATURE. 



question of the first arising of the living state, the 

 primary direction of the chemical or other force to 

 produce an organic arrangement of the elements, 

 remains as yet undecided. There is no difficulty 

 in conceiving such a modification of chemical action 

 to arise in accordance with the natural laws; and 

 that there should be forces existing which must 

 operate, under given circumstances, to determine the 

 organic arrangement of elements when it does not 

 exist before. Indeed, M. Berthelot's magnificent ex- 

 periments, in which some of the simpler organic sub- 

 stances have been formed from their elements by the 

 application of force in the laboratory, seem to exhibit 

 this very fact before our eyes.* And the differences 

 pointed out by Professor Grahamf between the two 

 great divisions of matter (the crystalline, and the 

 colloidal or gelatinous) have a most suggestive bear- 

 ing in the same direction. He remarks respecting 

 the latter (or colloidal) substances, that they contain 



* La Chimie Organique fondee sur la Synthese. Par M. Marcellus 

 Bcrthclot. 



f " On Liquid Diffusion as applied to Analysis." Philosophical 

 Transactions, 1861. Gum, or starch, or isinglass, may be taken as 

 examples of colloidal substances. 



