Part 4

"Seeds of wheat produced antecedent to the Pharaohs," says Bastain, "remaining in Egyptian catacombs through century after century display of course no vital manifestations, but nevertheless retain the potentiality of growing into perfect plants whenever they may be brought into contact with suitable external conditions. We must presume that either (1) during this long lapse of centuries the 'vital principle' of the plant has been imprisoned in the most dreary and impenetrable of dungeons, whither no sister effluence from the general 'soul of nature' could affect it; or else (2) that the germ of the future living plant is there only in the form of an inherited structure, whose molecular complexities are of such a kind that, after moisture has restored mobility to its atoms, its potential life may pass into actual life. Some of the lowest forms of animals and plants have such a tenacity to life that their vital manifestation may be kept in abeyance for five, ten, fifteen, or even twenty years. Though not living any more than the wheat, they also retain the potentiality of manifestation of life; and for each alike, in order that this potentiality may pass into actuality, the first requisition is water with which to restore them to that possibility of molecular rearrangement under the influence of incident forces, of which the absence of water had deprived them, and without which, life in any real sense is impossible."

ANALYSIS OF A MAN.

(BY PROF. MILLER.)

A man 5 feet 8 inches high, weighing 154 pounds.

lbs. oz. grs. Oxygen 111 0 0 Hydrogen 14 0 0 Carbon 21 0 0 Nitrogen 3 10 0

Inorganic elements in the ash:

Phosphorus 1 2 88 Calcium 2 0 0 Sulphur 0 0 219 Chlorine 0 2 47

1 ounce = 437 grains.

Sodium 0 2 116 Iron 0 0 100 Potassium 0 0 290 Magnesium 0 0 12 Silica 0 0 2

Total 154 0 0

The quantity of the substances found in a human body weighing 154 pounds:

lbs. oz. grs. Water 111 0 0 Gelatin 15 0 0 Albumen 4 3 0 Fibrine 4 4 0 Fat 12 0 0 Ashes 7 9 0

Total 154 0 0

(From the "CHEMISTS' MANUAL.")

Professor Owen says: "There are organisms (vibrieo, rotifer, macrobiotus, etc.) which we can devitalize and revitalize--devive and revive--many times. As the dried animalcule manifest no phenomena suggesting any idea contributing to form the complex one of 'life' in my mind, I regard it to be as completely lifeless as is the drowned man, whose breath and heat have gone, and whose blood has ceased to circulate. * * * The change of work consequent on drying or drowning forthwith begins to alter relations or compositions, and in time to a degree adverse to resumption of the vital form of force, a longer period being needed for this effect in the rotifer, a shorter one in the man, still shorter it may be in the amoeba."

"There is," says Dumas, "an eternal round in which death is quickened and life appears, but in which matter merely changes its place and form."

Let us now compare the inorganic world with the organic--the inanimate with the animate--and see if there does exist an inseparable boundary between them. The fundamental properties of every natural body are matter, form, and force. One important point to be noticed is, that the elements which compose all animate bodies are the very elements that help to build up the inanimate bodies. No new elements appear in the vegetable or animal world which are not to be found in the inorganic world. The difference between animate and inanimate bodies, therefore, is certainly not in the elements which form them, but in the molecular combination of them; and it is to be hoped that molecular physics will, at some not far distant time, enlighten us as to the peculiar state of aggregation in which the molecules exist in living matter. As to the form, it is impossible to find any essential difference in the external form and inner structure between inorganic and organic bodies--for the simple monad, which is as much a living organism as the most complex being, is nothing but a homogeneous, structureless mass of protoplasm. But just as the inorganic substance, according to well-defined laws, elaborates its structure into a crystal of great beauty, so does the protoplasm elaborate itself into the most beautiful of all structures--the cell unit. Just as gold and copper crystallizes in a geometrical form, a cube--bismuth and antimony in a hexagonal, iodine and sulphur in a rhombic form--so we find among radiolaria, and among other protista and lower forms, that they "may be traced to a mathematical, fundamental form, and whose form in its whole, as well as in its parts, is bounded by definite geometrically determinable planes and angles." Now, as to the forces of the two different groups of bodies. Surely the constructive force of a crystal is due to the chemical composition, and to its material constitution. As the shape of the crystal and its size are influenced by surrounding circumstances, there is, therefore, an external constructive force at work. The only difference between the growth of an organism and that of a crystal is, that in the former case, in consequence of its semi-fluid state of aggregation, the newly added particles penetrate into the interior of the organism (inter-susception), whereas inorganic substances receive homogeneous matter from without, only by opposition or an addition of new particles to the surface. "If we, then, designate the growth and the formation of organisms as a process of life, we may with equal reason apply the same term with the developing crystal." It is for these and other reasons, demonstrating as they do the "unity of organic and inorganic nature," the essential agreement of inorganic and organic bodies in matter, form, and force, which led Tyndall to say: "Abandoning all disguise, the confession that I feel bound to make before you is, that I prolong the vision backward across the boundary of experimental evidence, and discern in that matter which we in our ignorance, and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of every form and quality of life."

Returning now to our protoplasm, let us ask the question: Where did it come from? or, How did it come into existence? Though chemical synthesis has built up a number of organic substances which have been deemed the product of vitality, yet, up to the present day, the fact stands out before us that no one has ever built up one particle of living matter, however minute, from lifeless elements.

The protoplasm of to-day is simply a continuation of the protoplasm of other ages, handed down to us through periods of undefinable and indeterminable time.

The question of where protoplasm came from--how it arose--chemistry is unable to answer; but the question is answered, probably, by spontaneous generation. Only the merest particle of living protoplasm was necessary to be formed from lifeless matter in the beginning; for, in the eyes of any consistent evolutionist, any further independent formation would be sheer waste, as the hypothesis of evolution postulates the unlimited, though perhaps not, indefinite modifiability of such matter. As we have seen that there exists no absolute barrier between organic and inorganic bodies, it is not so difficult to conceive that the first particle of protoplasm may have originated, under suitable conditions, out of inorganic or lifeless matter. But the causes which have led to the origination of this particle, it may be said, we know absolutely nothing--as in the formation of the crystal and the cell--the ultimate causes remain in both cases concealed from us.

At the time in the earth's history when water, in a liquid state, made its appearance on the cooled crust of the earth, the carbon probably existed as carbonic acid dispersed in the atmosphere; and from the very best of grounds, it is reasonable to assume that the density and electric condition of the atmosphere were quite different, as also the chemical and physical nature of the primeval ocean was quite different. In any case, therefore, even if we do not know anything more about it, there remains the supposition, which can at least not be disputed, that at that time, under conditions quite different from those of to-day, a spontaneous generation, which is now perhaps no longer possible, may have taken place. This point is now conceded by most all of the advanced scientists of the day, and is absolutely necessary for the completion of the hypothesis of evolution.

The answer may come to this--Well, suppose the first protoplasm did originate by spontaneous generation, where did the elements or force come from which compose it?

Science has nothing to do with the coming into existence of matter or force, for she proves both to be indestructible; when they disappear, they do so only to reappear in some other form. The coming into existence of matter and force, as also the ultimate cause of all phenomena, is beyond the domain of scientific inquiry. Science has only to do with the coming in of the form of matter, not the coming in of its existence.

THE COMING INTO EXISTENCE OF MAN,

BY THE SLOW PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT.

It is necessary now to take up the little mass of living matter, admitting its coming into existence by spontaneous generation as probable, and so probable that it almost amounts to a certainty, and follow it through the many changes it is about to make under the influence of the laws which govern evolution until it has culminated in man, and these laws still acting on the brain of man, perfecting it, and leading him on to the comprehension of a grander and nobler conception of the Almighty and of his works.

The start, then, must be made with a homogeneous mass of protoplasm, such as the existing Protamoeba primitiva of the present day, which is a structureless organism without organs, and which came into existence during the Laurentian period. It is to this simplified condition, as I have previously stated, all fertilized eggs return before they commence to develop.

The first process of adaptation effected by the monera must have been the condensation of an external crust, which, as a protecting covering, shut in the softer interior from the hostile influences of the outer world. As soon as, by condensation of the homogeneous moneron, a cell-kernel arose in the interior, and a membrane arose on the surface, all the fundamental parts of the unit were then furnished. Such a unit was an organism, similar to the white corpuscle of the blood, and called amoebæ. Here we have two different stages of evolution; the protoplasma (better plasson) of the cytod undergoes differentiation, and is split up into two kinds of albuminous substances--the inner cell-kernel (nucleus) and the outer cell-substance (protoplasma). Edward von Benden, in his work upon Gregarinæ, first clearly pointed out this fact, that we must distinguish thoroughly between the plasson of cytods and the protoplasm of cells.