450 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 823 



because of its source and of the method 

 by which we have gained it, it is of a frag- 

 mentary character, and therefore less satis- 

 factory in our estimation. 



This state of our knowledge has affected 

 — or, to express it more explicitly, has 

 fashioned — our concept of living matter. 

 When M'e think of the cell it is idealized as 

 a morphological element only. The func- 

 tional aspect is not ignored, but we know 

 very little about it, and we veil our ignor- 

 ance by classing its manifestations as vital 

 phenomena. 



It is true that in the last twenty years, 

 and more particularly in the last ten, we 

 have gathered something from biochemical 

 research. We know much concerning 

 ferment or catalytic action, of the physical 

 characters of colloids, of the constitution 

 of proteins, and their synthesis in the lab- 

 oratory promises to be an achievement of 

 the near future. We are also in a position 

 to understand a little more clearly what 

 happens in proteins when, on decomposi- 

 tion in the cell, they yield the waste prod- 

 ucts, urea, and other metabolites, with 

 carbon dioxide and water. Further, fats 

 can be formed in the laboratory from glyc- 

 erine and fatty acids, a large number of 

 which have also been synthesized, and a 

 very large majority of the sugars of the 

 aldohexose type have been built up from 

 simpler compounds. These facts indicate 

 that some of the results of the activity of 

 animal and vegetable cells may be paralleled 

 in the laboratory, but that is as far as the 

 resemblance extends. The methods of the 

 laboratory are not as yet those of nature. 

 In the formation of carbohydrates, for ex- 

 ample, the chlorophyll-holding cell makes 

 use of processes of the most speedy and ef- 

 fective character, biit nothing of these is 

 known to us except that they are quite 

 unlike the processes the laboratory em- 

 ploys in the artificial synthesis of carbo- 



hydrates. Nature works unerringly, un- 

 falteringly, with an amazing economy of 

 material and energy, while ' ' our laboratory 

 syntheses are but roundabout ways to the 

 waste sink. ' ' 



In consequence, it is customary to regard 

 living matter as unique — sui generis, as it 

 - were, without an analogue or parallel in 

 the inorganic world — and the secrets in- 

 volved in its actions and activities as in- 

 soluble enigmas. Impelled by this view 

 there are those, also, who postulate as an 

 explanation for all these manifestations 

 the intervention in so-called living matter 

 of a force otherwise and elsewhere un- 

 known, biotic or vital, whose action is 

 directed, according to the character of the 

 structure through which it operates, to the 

 production of the phenomena in question. 

 Living protoplasm is, in this view, but a 

 mask and a medium for action of the un- 

 known force. 



This is an old doctrine, but it has again 

 made headway in recent years owing to the 

 reaction from the enthusiasm which came 

 from the belief that the application of the 

 known laws of physics and chemistry in the 

 study of living matter would explain all its 

 mysteries. A quarter of a century ago 

 hopes were high that the solution of these 

 problems would soon be found in a more 

 profound comprehension of the laws of the 

 physical world. Since then there has been 

 an extraordinary increase in our knowl- 

 edge of the structure and of the products 

 of the activity of living matter without a 

 corresponding increase in knowledge of the 

 processes involved. The obscurity still in- 

 volving the latter appears all the greater 

 because of the high lights thrown on the 

 former. Despair, in consequence, has 

 taken the place of hope with some, and the 

 action of a mysterious force is invoked to 

 explain a mystery. 



It may be admitted that our methods of 



