no THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



the missing link between the animate and inanimate. 

 May they not also be something like the germs 

 which, after countless generations, under gradually 

 changing forms and in suitable environments, had 

 at length evolved into a bacillus, at which we gaze 

 with hopeless wonder and amazement each time we 

 view them in the microscope to-day ? Upon this 

 point we are at liberty to have our own personal 

 opinions without forcing them upon others. It is 

 mere speculation. 



For our own part the gap, apparently insuper- 

 able, between the organic and the inorganic world, 

 seems, however roughly, to be bridged over by the 

 presence of these radio-organic organisms which at 

 least may give a clue as to the beginning and the 

 end of life. 



The mode of development, or the life-history of 

 these bodies is, then, their most remarkable charac- 

 teristic, and it is curious to note that, although in 

 their living or semi-living states they may differ 

 widely from crystals, yet the final products are 

 nothing more than these. Can they stUl be 

 crystals in disguise ? Not more so surely than 

 protoplasm, which, as Sachs in his Physiology of 

 Plants maintains, is really composed of crystals. 

 Such aggregates, however, are by no means to be 

 identified with crystals, their properties being quite 

 different — as different as those of a highly complex 

 molecule is from its constituent atoms. Their pro- 

 perties are quite different, although the substances be 

 the same. The constituent crystals of protoplasm are 



