ee 
1884.] On Catagenesis. 979 
that other substances besides protoplasm might support conscious- 
ness and life. In other parts of the universe, other substances 
they would have to be, if consciousness exist there. 
The manner in which protoplasm is made at the present time 
is highly suggestive. It is manufactured by living plants out of 
inorganic matter, the hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen 
contained in the atmosphere and in the earth. As dead plants 
will not perform this function, this action is regarded as in some 
way due to the presence of life. The energy peculiar to living pro- 
toplasm, and derived primarily in part only from the sun’s rays, 
directs energy so that the complex molecular aggregation proto- 
plasm is the result. This is the only known method of manufac- 
ture from inorganic matter, of this substance. The first piece of 
protoplasm had however no paternal protoplasm from which to 
derive its being. The protoplasm-producing energy must, there- 
fore, have previously existed in some form of matter not proto- 
plasm. This is also suggested by the fact that it really antagonizes 
the chemical forces, and might be called, from this fact, antichem- 
ism. The protoplasm-sustaining energy of animal protoplasm 
may be a less energetic derivative, or vice versa. In terms of the 
theory of catagenesis, the plant life is a derivative of the primi- 
tive life, and it has retained enough of the primitive quality of 
self-maintenance to prevent it from running down into forms of 
nergy which are below the life level; that is, such as are of the 
inorganic chemical type, or the crystalline physical type. A part 
of the energy does so run down, as can be seen in the few auto- 
Matic movements of plants, and the phosphorescence of some. 
Also symmetrical crystals are made by some. But M. Pasteur 
has shown! that whenever the crystals are of the organic type, 
+. £, Contain carbon, they are not symmetrical but are unilateral, 
or, as he terms them, dissymmetrical. This indicates that the 
Presence of carbon has restrained, a little, the absolute symmet- 
rical automatism of the formative force. 
IV. ORIGIN oF LIFE ON THE EARTH. 
If then some form of matter other than protoplasm has been 
capable of sustaining the essential energy of life, it remains for 
future research to detect it, and to ascertain whether it has long 
“xisted as part of the earth’s material substance or not. The 
2 eVue . . 
Revue Scientifique, 1884, Jan., p. 2. 
VOL. XVIIIL—no. X. Üi 
