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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXIX. No. 749 



eral billion tons each year, and not only 

 cellulose, but all the countless other com- 

 plex products of the vegetable cell. "What 

 shall we say of our own chemistry in the 

 face of facts like these, except that we have 

 gone far enough to encourage a faint hope 

 that we may some day be able to approach 

 such methods. Professor Wheeler has de- 

 fined so clearly a thought which has been 

 in my own mind for years that I can not 

 do better than quote his words. He says: 



The vegetable cell is a laboratory in which a.re 

 carried out a most remarkable series of chemical 

 reactions. As we contemplate the immense num- 

 ber of organic compounds of all degrees of com- 

 plexity which are formed within this wall of the 

 plant cell we are convinced that this is the chem- 

 ical laboratory par excellence. Two features im- 

 press us particularly; first, the silence in which 

 the operations are carried on; second, the narrow 

 range of medium temperatures required. Not- 

 withstanding this apparent simplicity of condi- 

 tions, the products are of the most various kind. 

 Some of these man is able to synthesize in his 

 own crude way; others are still the secrets of 

 nature. It is utterly impossible for man to pre- 

 pare certain naturally occurring compounds ex- 

 cept at a temperature which would burn the plant 

 tissue. We are led to wonder whether forces exist 

 with which we are unacquainted or whether we 

 are merely unable to control the forces already 

 familiar to us. It would be diiScult to say which 

 supposition is the more probable. It will be 

 granted that investigation into the activities of 

 the cell is of profoimd importance. In fact it has 

 been said that " it is in the plant cell where syn- 

 thetical operations are predominant, that we have 

 to look for the foundation of the ' new chemistry ' 

 which may be expressed broadly as the relation of 

 matter to life." 



I expressed two years ago my own belief 

 that the distinctions which we now regard 

 as fundamental between living matter and 

 dead matter would soon break down. 

 This break will, in my opinion, come 

 through the study of the colloids which are 

 the link between matter which we regard 

 as living and that which we regard as dead. 

 At this point, I can not refrain from 

 volunteering a suggestion. "We know that 



the atoms within the molecule are in ro- 

 tation. It must follow that as the com- 

 plexity of the molecule increases more and 

 more of its motion of translation must be 

 converted into rotary motion. In the 

 colloidal molecule we know that many 

 simpler molecules are linked together, and 

 in the molecule of living matter, what? 

 May it not be merely that the more or less 

 haphazard and confined movements of the 

 molecules, which together build up the 

 colloid, are in the molecule of living matter 

 coordinated and controlled in a manner 

 which suggests the vortex. Dead matter 

 drawn within this vortex would partake 

 of this movement and exhibit the phe- 

 nomena of life. Matter thrown off tan- 

 gentially would resume its rectilinear 

 course and become, for the moment, dead. 



When we consider that in theory at 

 least, in which accidents are barred, a 

 tiny bit of living jelly, an amoeba for ex- 

 ample, can endow with life an ocean of its 

 proper pabulum, it seems obvious that the 

 forces which are to manifest themselves in 

 the phenomena of life are already existent 

 in the pabulum, and that what the living 

 jelly does is to induce a coordination and 

 direction of the atomic movements which 

 then take on the vital aspect. Do we not 

 have something roughly analogous to this 

 in the magnetization of successive pieces of 

 steel drawn across a lodestone? A certain 

 coordination of movement in the molecules 

 of the steel has been induced and mag- 

 netism results. So in some manner far 

 more complex life, I believe, may be 

 epitomized as coordinated motion. 



The subject-matter of such speculations 

 lies so far outside our present-day chem- 

 istry as to almost require apology for their 

 presentation, but they are well within the 

 subject-matter of the chemistry of the 

 future, for, to again quote the words of 

 Pearson : 



