VARIOUS THEORIES. _ 597 



protoplasts endowed with the capacity to alter their constitution on their own 

 initiative; and, further, that these alterations take place along predetermined lines 

 in a direction leading from a lower to a higher platform; consequently the 

 imperfect organism necessarily, in course of time, passes over into a highly 

 developed, perfect one. Against this theory the following may be urged: The 

 first assumption involves creation. The question is: Is it possible for a living 

 protoplast to be formed from inorganic matter without the co-operation of already 

 existing living beings? The question obviously concerns the present and future 

 as well as the past, for what has happened once may again take place, for the 

 forces of nature, according to the laws of the conservation of matter and energy, 

 remain the same for all time. The discussion of this question resolves itself into 

 this: whether a little bit of protoplasm can arise from inorganic matter, and after 

 its origin can acquire the capacity of growing by the absorption of food from its 

 environment, &c.: in a word, whether it can exhibit those changes and movements 

 which we term life. When first organic compounds (formic acid, urea, sugar, &c.) 

 were synthesized in chemical laboratories from inorganic substances like ammonia, 

 carbonic acid, and water — compounds which formerly had only been produced as a 

 result of the activity of living protoplasm — naturalists began to think that these 

 things might take place in nature independent of already existing plants. It 

 seemed possible that these substances might, under the uncontrolled forces of 

 nature, unite and arrange themselves in the same manner as occurs within a 

 vegetable cell. The tendency of matter to combine, which plays so important 

 a part in nature, was pointed out, and especially the similarity between the 

 structure of crystals and that of certain cells; the properties of finely-divided 

 soil also were called to mind, how it absorbed gases, took up water in varying 

 quantities, altered salt-solutions, separating certain of their constituents, and what 

 was especially noteworthy, increased the capacity of many simple substances to 

 combine. This was at a time when chief importance was attached to the chemical 

 properties of protoplasm; it was thought that, once given the substance, it would 

 form itself into cells like crystals. Of the ultimate structure of protoplasm and 

 of the nucleus knowledge was as yet very incomplete. The tendency of that time 

 was to explain all those phenomena which constitute life as , the resultant of the 

 various forces which form inorganic bodies, and to deny the existence of any wide 

 gulf between the living and non-living world. 



The experiments to produce living matter had all of them negative results. 

 But this of course is no proof of its impossibility; for it can always be urged that 

 wrong methods were followed, and improper conditions imposed. Nor, on the 

 other hand, does it follow from the fact that hitherto living matter has never 

 been known to originate independently of existing organisms, that its production 

 is impossible. Since we cannot arrive at definite results by experiment, the in- 

 vestigator must depend on other considerations. 



The second assumption of the theory of transformation from internal causes, 

 that plants have the inherent capacity to modify their internal constitution and. 



