THE ORIGIN OF LIFE— UNDISCOVERABLE. 



45 



recognize his own will as the director of his own actions. Thus a 

 batsman determines to drive the ball between two of the " field." 

 The mechanism lies in his arms and the force in the muscles guided 

 by nerves, but the directivity is in the life in his brain. 



Since the preceding was written a little book entitled The Origin 

 and Nature of Life has been published by Dr. B. Moore.* He deals 

 with physical and psychical evolution ; electrons and chemical com- 

 pounds of the earth ; building materials for living matter ; and discusses 

 crystalloids and colloids, maintaining that the latter lead up to living 

 protoplasm of a colloidal nature. But he can throw no more light 

 upon the origin and nature of life than Professor Schaffer, to whose 

 address he refers. " Atoms, molecules, colloids and living organisms 

 arise as the result of the operations of the law of complexity . . . 

 In this manner we can conceive that the hiatus between non-living 

 and living things can be bridged over. . . . Given the presence 

 of matter and energy forms under the proper conditions, life must 

 come inevitably," &c. f Then follows an imaginary process of 

 evolution among colloids — leading up to protoplasm — which con- 

 tains " must," twice, " would," seven times, " probably " and " could " 

 once each, the whole being purely imaginary, just as is McCabe's 

 supposition of a parallel process from cyanogen referred to above. 



The one great stumbling-block to the acceptance of any and all 

 such theories is, that as soon as an organism comes into existence no 

 account is offered in explanation of the sudden and universal appear- 

 ance of directivity of a kind totally unknown in the inorganic world. 



* Home University Library.' 



t Op. ext. p. 190. 



