12 LIFE: ITS ORIGIN AND NATURE 
and Origin of Life,” he attempted to show that 
living and non-living matter were by no means' 
fundamentally different in their characteristics; 
that they shaded into one another by degrees, 
and that many of the characteristics of life had 
been artificially demonstrated to exist in non¬ 
living bodies which had been “created” by 
purely chemical methods. This contention— 
that there existed no essential difference be¬ 
tween living and non-living matter—seemed to 
be borne-out by the ingenious researches of Prof. 
Chunder Bose, of the University of Calcutta, 
who showed that all substances manifest at 
least some of the phenomena of life, and that 
even metals are subject to fatigue, and need 
rest. Again it has been shown that some chemi¬ 
cal substances (for example, linseed oil) seem 
to possess a certain degree of memory; that the 
speed of its reaction to other substances in¬ 
creases from day to day, but that if a few days 
are allowed to intervene between the experi¬ 
ments, a longer time elapses before the reaction 
takes place, seeming to show that the linseed 
oil has, so to say, forgotten how to react in an 
appropriate manner. 
In spite of these many similarities, however, 
it is nevertheless true that great differences 
also exist between living and non-living sub¬ 
stances. For example, it has been contended 
that many of the characteristics of life are 
manifested by crystals, but Doctor McKendrick 
(in his “Principles of Physiology”) has pointed 
out that genuine living matter never assumes 
a crystal-like formation; and there is this 
further distinction, that, whereas crystals grow 
