i6o THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



bioplasts. His view, however, was that the globular 

 particles or granules, such as the secretory pigments 

 and fats, are also amongst the bioplasts : and, as 

 Haeckel remarks, his granular theory is now generally 

 rejected. Altmann's visible granules, like many 

 other theories which attribute the elements of life 

 to visible structures, are likely to lead little further 

 than we have already arrived at. That the first 

 beginnings of life should in any way have any- 

 thing to do with our range of vision can only be 

 entertained in moments of enthusiasm when we 

 are inclined to take ourselves too seriously. The 

 smallest visible organism is doubtless a highly 

 complicated body, and the atoms of which it is 

 composed bear the same relation to it that it 

 does to a highly complex living organism such as 

 a plant or animal. In every case we have to deal 

 with the relative aspect of life rather than with the 

 ultimate type. Once more there is nothing great 

 or small but thinking makes it so. The elements 

 themselves may be distinct species of atoms, which 

 resemble each other much in the same fashion as 

 organisms of the same species do. Their general pro- 

 perties are the same and enable them to be classified 

 together, but there is plenty of room for difierences 

 in non-essential points ; non-essential so far as these 

 do not apply to the particular properties upon which 

 the classification is based. And we may so regard 

 the atoms of the same element as difi"ering in many 

 non-chemical properties : for it is only in their 

 chemical properties that their identity obtains. 



