RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY TO PSYCHOLOGY. 
29 
have we not generated the properties inherent in protoplasm, 
viz., life ? Have we not, therefore, created life ? And if we 
can create life, how much more may we hope to preserve life 
indefinitely ? Then follows, of course, the revival, on a strictly 
scientific basis, of all the glorious dreams of the alchemists— 
Elixir of Life, Immortal Youth, &c. Why not ? 
Such were and still are, according to many, the claims of 
chemistry; and such were some of the glowing hopes natu¬ 
rally raised thereby—not, indeed, often expressed by scientific 
writers, for the scientific imagination is strictly restrained 
and chastened by reason, but mainly by the popular scien¬ 
tific folk. But more and more, as sober second thought 
gained control, a flaw was seen in this reasoning. Proto¬ 
plasm is, indeed, the goal, perhaps the unattainable goal, 
but still the legitimate goal, of chemical synthesis. But is 
there not such a thing as dead protoplasm? When we 
speak of the composition of protoplasm as C. H. N. 0. and 
S. P., is it not of dead protoplasm we are speaking? Can 
protoplasm be dealt with at all by the chemist? Does it at 
all fall into the domain of chemistry until it is dead ? 
Whether there be any difference in composition between 
living and dead protoplasm we know not, and can never 
know, because chemistry cannot deal with it except in a 
dead state; but the difference in properties is inconceiv¬ 
ably great. The difference, therefore, between living and 
dead matter is not a chemical difference, but a difference 
of another order. When, therefore, the chemist shall have 
reached, if ever, his utmost goal, the synthetic preparation 
of protoplasm, how shall he then quicken it into life ? Not 
by chemical means.* 
* It is possible, indeed probable, that the difference between living and 
dead protoplasm is a difference not of chemical equivalent composition, 
but of molecular arrangement, such as we find in allotropism. If so, then 
the allotropic condition which we call living protoplasm cannot be pro¬ 
duced except in the presence of and in contact with previous matter of 
the same kind— i. e., in contact with previous life. As a magnet by con¬ 
tact communicates its own property of magnetism to other iron, so living 
protoplasm by contact communicates its own property of life to other 
protoplasm under certain conditions. 
