134 THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



such development, is sometliing really simpler; as 

 mucli so as life in the Amoeba and life in Man are 

 very much the same although the potentialities, the 

 developments of which they admit, are in the two 

 cases totally distinct. This is a point upon which too 

 much stress cannot be laid : that the potentiality 

 and consequent complexity of the natural cell as 

 distinct from the artificial one is not that which 

 distinguishes the vital process in them, for this seems 

 to be far simpler than is at first imagined, when 

 distinguished from the developments to which it can 

 subsequently give rise. It is the single assimilation 

 and secretion, the peculiar fiux within a compara- 

 tively simple structure, that constitutes the vitality : 

 quite distinct from the potential properties of the 

 cell itself, which is due, no doubt, to the finer 

 structures of which it is finally composed. 



"We imagine, then, life to be the simpler process by 

 which these complex structures are ultimately able to 

 develop. It is the mode of change of substance by 

 which the growth or expansion of the cell is accom- 

 plished in such a manner as to develop its innate 

 powers. 



A cell which can subsequently develop into an 

 animal must indeed have a structure of the most 

 complicated kind. And those potentialities, innate 

 qualities, it is difficult to imagine, can be due to 

 nothing else than to the structure of the germ itself 

 which can give rise to them. 



That complex structure we can never hope to 

 imitate. Not even in its simplest examples, as in the 



