5 
Fuly 7, 1870] 
NATURE 
195 
advent of Living things.* We at present may, therefore, well 
wish to know, whether what is presumed to have taken place 
then may still take place now, since the affirmative solution of 
this problem would suffice to throw a halo of reflected light 
back through the ages, and would thus make that which is now 
a mere hypothesis, approximate as much as possible to the rank 
of one of the best established probabilities concerning the life- 
history of the globe on which we live. : 
_ It was with a feeble hope of throwing light upon the above-men- 
tioned subject that I commenced the series of experiments which 
are now to be detailed. These were at first somewhat tentative, 
but the success obtained at each step emboldened me to pro- 
ceed in my endeavours to obtain Living things under more and 
more arduous conditions. In all cases the saline substances were 
carefully selected ; one of the first requisites being that they 
should, at all events, contain the four fundamental ingredients of 
Living things: nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. There- 
fore it was that in almost all cases an ammoniacal salt was one of 
the substances used, on account of its capability of supplying 
nitrogen. And, with the view of keeping up a sort of uniformity, 
phosphate of soda was employed as the second saline ingredient 
in as many of the solutions as possible. This was considered 
quite as suitable as any other salt, and as a phosphate it presented 
certain advantages. It was deemed necessary, moreover, that 
a certain mixture of substances should exist, in order that there 
might be sufficient diversity amongst the elements coexisting in 
the solutions. These elements being then affected differently by 
the play of incident physical forces upon them, under their new 
modes of vibration thus excited, new and altogether different 
mutual affinities might become’ dominant, after the fashion so 
clearly indicated by Mr. Herbert Spencer { in reference to other 
molecular re-arrangements. And these affinities might also be 
such as would tend to a colloidal rather than to a crystalloidal 
mode of aggregation. Concerning such probabilities, we doubt- 
less have much to learn. Amongst saline substances, colloidal 
modes of aggregation seem to be fayoured under certain sets of 
conditions, and crystalloidal modes of aggregation under certain 
other sets of conditions. Prof. Graham showed that this was 
the case with such mineral compounds as silica, the sesqui-oxides 
of iron, chromium, and other bodies. Then, again, this possi- 
bility of an isomeric modification is admirably exemplified by the 
now well-known tendency of cyanate of ammonia to become con- 
verted into the organic compound called urea. We are told in 
Watts’s Dictionary of Chemistry § that after an aqueous solution of 
cyanate of ammonia has been prepared, the ‘‘liquid exhibits the 
reactions of a cyanate, but when /eaéed or left to evaporate spon- 
taneously, it is converted into urea.” This would seem to show 
that the passage from the crystalloid to the colloid mode of 
molecular collocation is by no means a difficult one—that it may 
be brought about, in fact, by very slight determining causes. 
That transitions of a reverse order may be effected from 
the one to the other state or mode of aggregation—and this, 
too, even with more complex substances—seems indicated by the 
fact that certain protein compounds may exist at one time in 
their usual colloidal state, and at another time as statical crystal- 
line aggregates. The possibility of the assumption of the crys- 
talline form by a certain number of these protein or colloidal 
substances is, indeed, now placed beyond all doubt.|| As 
the most familiar instance of this I may mention the now 
well-known oblique rhombic 4ematoidin crystals and other 
crystalline forms obtainable from blood. And amongst these 
latter are to be included certain tetrahedral crystals dis- 
covered{] by Reichert, in connection with the placenta of the 
atomic collocation which displays them. The speck of living matter is held 
to contain no newly created force—just as no one believes it to contain newly 
created material units. Such a germ or embryo Living thing, is only a new 
mode of collocation of pre-existing matter, and of pre-existing force or 
motion. Its properties—the “‘ vital” phenomena which it manifests—are the 
results of the particular material collocation which exists, and of the ‘‘ condi- 
tions’ by which this is surrounded. A Living thing is a dynamic aggregate, 
and between such aggregate and its environment, there is continuous action 
and reaction so long as Life exists. 
_ I have given the reasons for such views a little more fully in an article en- 
titled ‘‘Protoplasm” (N aTuRE, Feb.24,1870), and I would again refer the reader 
to the views announced by Prof. Huxley and Prof. Tyndall (Note, p. 175). 
* See Appendix to Mr. Herbert Spencer's “ Principles of Biology.” 
+ The presence of phosphates was found by M. Pasteur greatly to favour 
the growth of fungi in certain saline solutions. (Annales de Chimie et de 
Physique, 1862, p. 108.) 
t Principles of Biology, Vol. I. chap. ii., entitled, “The Action of Forces 
on Organic Matter.” § Vol. ii. p. 193. 
| See an article on “* Albuminous Crystallisation,” in British and Foreign 
Medical and Chirurgical Review, Oct. 1853. - 
“| Beobachtungen tiber eine eiweissartige Substanz in Crystal-form ;— 
Miiller’s Archives, 1849, p. 197. me 
guinea-pig, the behaviour of which to reagents rendered it cer- 
tain that they were of an albuminous or protein nature.* _Chlo- 
rophyll, also, has been observed in a crystalline state by M. 
Trécul.+ In thes2 and in many other cases which might be cited, 
we have, apparently, to do with some mere alteration in the 
arrangement of molecules, and the crystalline form is to be re- 
garded as possible when’ certain isomeric modifications are 
brought about in substances which ordinarily are non-crystallis- 
able. No less an authority than M. Trécul, also, tells { us that 
he has actually seen and watched a tetrahedral crystalline mass of 
this kind, which had been produced within the cells of the bark 
of the common elder (Sambucus nigra), gradually undergoing a 
modification in form at a certain part of a most startling nature. 
Whilst altering in shape, the part so altering was seen to become 
converted into a short fungoid filament which grew at the expense 
of the crystal. This change in form, then, could only be taken as 
the external sign of a much more profound molecular rearrange- 
ment taking place within the mass, whereby it was changed from 
a non-living albuminoid crystal into a Living and growing or- 
ganism.§ In this remarkable case there must have been not only 
a relapse into the colloidal mode of molecular aggregation, but a 
secondary assumption of a still more unstable mode of colloca- 
tion, by means of which the mass was gradually converted into a 
living embryo fungus. 
It is well, then, for us to bear these facts and statements in 
mind, whilst we enter into the kindred though somewhat different 
inquiry, whether, under the influence of suitable conditions, there 
is any disposition for the ultimate constituents of different saline 
substances, existing intermixed in a state of aqueous solu- 
tion, to fall into new groupings or modes of collocation of 
a non-saline or colloidal nature. If this can take place, 
we should then have a new kind of decomposition with an 
almost simultaneous recomposition—a re-arrangement, in fact 
—giving birth to substances allied to those of the protein 
group. And it would be only rational for us to suppose 
that such new-formed protein substances would be as prone to 
undergo change as these substances are generally found to be. 
If ordinary protein substances, therefore, which have been built 
up as parts of Living things, are capable of going through cer- 
tain Life-giving changes, it would be quite possible that the 
differently evolved protein—that which comes into existence 
“spontaneously,” or without the influence of pre-existing living 
things—may go through similar changes. The molecular con- 
stitution of these two kinds of matter may be closely allied, and 
wherever Life-giving changes occur, we are entitled to look upon 
these as actions resulting from the influence of physical forces 
upon material collocations whose molecular constitution is of 
such a nature as to render them prone to undergo current re- 
arrangements. A series of actions and reactions occur between 
such material collocations and their environment, and as a result 
Living things appear and grow. This tendency to undergo 
change is inherent in colloidal substances. As Prof. Graham 
told us :—‘‘ Their existence is a continual metastatiss . . . 
The Colloidal is, in fact, a dynamical state of matter, the crys- 
talloid being the statical condition. he colloid possesses 
Enercia. /¢ may be looked upon as the probable primary source 
of the force appearing in the phenomena of vitality.” 
B.—Fluids employed being Solutions of Saline Substances in D.s+ 
tilled Water. 
Experiment 9.—A flask containing a solution (neutral) of crys- 
tallised white sugar, tartrate of ammonia, phosphate of ammonia, 
and phosphate of sodal| 272 vacuo, which had been hermetically 
sealed nine days previously, after the fluid had been boiled for 
20 minutes, was opened on January 4, 1870. 
* For an account of these reactions see Brit. and For. Rev., loc. cit., p. 354. 
+ Comptes Rendus, t. Ixi., p. 436. t /bid., t. xi. (1865), p. 435- 
§ M. Trécul’s own words are as follows :—‘‘ Lors de mes observations en 
1860, j'avais reconnu que des corpuscles colorables en violet par l'iode rem- 
placent frequemment les tétraédres aprés la putréfaction, mais je ne vis pas 2 
cette époque la transition des uns aux autres. Je fus plus heureux cette 
année ; j'ai vu les tétraédres s'allonger par un de leurs angles, et passe gra- 
duellement A nos singuliéres plantules en preduisant une tigelle cylindrique. 
Dans ce cas le tétraédre, arrondi ou encore anguleux, représente la bulbe. 
Le tétratdre peut méme s’effacer complétement, et ne laisser aprés lui qu'une 
plantule fusiforme ou cylindrique.” 3 
|| The several ingredients were contained in this solution in the following 
proportions :—To 80 parts of water there were added 16 parts of sugar, 1 part 
of tartrate of ammonia, and } a part each of phosphate of ammonia and phos- 
phate of soda. This solution, therefore, did not contain saline substances 
alone ; the presence of sugar made it form a connecting link, as it were, 
between the solutions containing organic matter only, and those in which 
saline substances alone were contained. 
