6Q-(30) CHEMISTET AND THE QUESTION OF LIFE. 



the accuracy of fundamental data. When this happens 

 the judgment is of course misled, and its conclusions 

 are not to be trusted. 



Now the organic substances which have been artificial- 

 ly made invariably possess this character in common, 

 viz. : they are definite chemical compounds. Each is a 

 single thing, complete in itself and homogeneous. No 

 one, nor any mixture of several, displays any texture or 

 action which is not to be seen among bodies of a purely 

 chemical origin. 



We may therefore admit that so far as organic sub- 

 stances are definite chemical compounds, or mixtures of 

 these, they are the products of chemical and physical 

 forces. To account for their production the hypothesis 

 of a life-energy may be abandoned. 



But such is not at all the character of organized bodies. 

 Living matter of every grade, therefore, lies' outside the 

 province of any generalization based on the results of 

 chemical synthesis, and to account for its phenomena the 

 hypothesis of a life-force, exhibiting itself in the growth 

 of living things is absolutely untouched by its most bril- 

 1 iant achievements. 



Consider further that in living things we have a condi- 

 tion of matter which cannot abide unprotected in the 

 presence of the chemical and physical forces, for without 

 exception an organized body must be disorganized and 

 living matter becomes lifeless before their materials are 

 in a condition to be moulded or transformed by chemical 

 means. Shall we say that these forces are the only ones 

 engaged in the production of organic matter, in the face 

 of the fact that in the dissolution of every lifeless body 

 we see that it is the very nature of these forces to destroy 

 every trace of that which gives to matter its organic 

 character ? 



As long as we have in living things a world of phe- 

 nomena so diverse in Tcind from the phenomena of 

 mineral matter that the physical forces fail to explain 

 the simplest of them, and leaves the scientist without the 

 slightest hint as to the nature of the laws which make 

 rhese things organic, or as to the force which imparts to 

 them the principle of life, so long we are logically bound 

 to admit that the hypothesis of the force of life is as 

 necessary as the hypothesis of the force of gravitation. 



