28 ORGANIC EVOLUTION CONSIDERED 



however, especially in recent years, succeeded in 

 manufacturing from the elementary substances them- 

 selves, or from inorganic compounds, a good many 

 carbon compounds which are obtained from organic 

 matter, or which are produced by plants and animals. 

 And yet it is true that the processes of manufacture, 

 as carried on artificially on the one hand, or by the 

 living being on the other, are probably widely differ- 

 ent from each other. It is probable that the life 

 force of the living being is something more than the 

 properties of the inorganic elements, and that it 

 proceeds according to methods that cannot be fol- 

 lowed in the laboratory. This seems the more 

 probable when we remember that but few carbon 

 compounds that exist in living beings have been 

 artificially produced, and that we know almost noth- 

 ing of the methods by which organic beings produce 

 the great multitude of very complex organic com- 

 pounds. It is beyond the truth for the chemist to 

 claim that, in manufacturing a few carbon com- 

 pounds in the laboratory, he is imitating the pro- 

 cesses carried on in the living world. It is evident 

 that the living organism uses methods which are un- 

 known to the chemist, and which it is not probable 

 can ever be imitated. 



I need not say that no organized form of matter 

 has ever been produced artificially. The chemist, I 

 presume, does not even dream that he will ever be 

 able to manufacture from the elements albumen like 

 the white of an egg, nor a nerve fibre, nor cell, nor a 

 grain of corn. 



While the power of the chemist in manufacturing 

 carbon compounds must certainly be regarded as one 

 of the great triumphs of science, yet it must be 

 admitted that it amounts to but little when compared 

 to the work of living plants and animals. 



