As we have seen, the egg gets rid of half its chromosomes in order to receive an equal number from a male parent; and thus the fertilized egg contains chromosomes, and hence hereditary material, from two different individuals. Now, this s.e.xual reproduction occurs very widely in the organic world. Among some of the lowest forms of unicellular organisms it is not known, but in most others some form of such union is universal. Now, here is plainly an abundant opportunity for congenital variations; for it is seen that each individual does not come from germ material _identical with that from which either parent came, but from some of this material mixed with a similar amount from a different parent_. Now, the two parents are never exactly alike, and hence the germ plasm which each contributes to the offspring will not be exactly alike. The offspring will thus be the result of the unfolding of a bit of germ plasm which will be different from that from which either of its parents developed, and these differences will result in _congenital variations_. s.e.xual reproduction thus results in congenital variations; and if congenital variations are necessary for the evolution of the living machine--and we shall soon see reason for believing that they are--we find that s.e.xual reproduction is a device adopted for bringing out such congenital variations.
==Inheritance of Variations.==--The reason why congenital variations are needed for the evolution of the living machine is clear enough.
Evanescent variations can have no effect upon this machine, for they would disappear with the individual in which they appeared. In order that they should have any influence in the process of machine building they must be permanent ones; or, in other words, they must be inherited from generation to generation. Only as such variations are transmitted by heredity can they be added to the structure of the developing machine. Therefore we must ask whether the variations are inherited.
In regard to the congenital variations there can be no difficulty. The very fact that they are congenital shows us that they have been produced by variations in the germ plasm, and as such they must be transmitted, not only to the next generation, but to all following generations, until the germ plasm becomes again modified. This germ plasm is handed on from generation to generation with all its variations, and hence the variations will be added permanently to the machine. Congenital variations are thus a means for permanently modifying the organism, and by their agency must we in large measure believe that evolution through the ages has taken place.
With the acquired variations the matter stands quite differently. We can readily understand how influences surrounding an animal may affect its organs. The increase in the size of the muscles of the blacksmith"s arm by use we understand readily enough. But with our understanding of the machinery of heredity we can not see how such an effect can extend to the next generation. It is only the organ directly affected that is modified by external conditions. Acquired variations will appear in the part of the body influenced by the changed conditions. But the germ plasm within the reproductive glands is not, so far as we can see, subject to the influence of an increased use, for example, in the arm muscles. The germ material is derived from the parents, and, if it is simply stored in the individual, how could an acquired variation affect it? If an individual lose a limb his offspring will not be without a corresponding limb, for the hereditary material is in the reproductive organs, and it is impossible to believe that the loss of the limb can remove from the hereditary material in the reproductive glands just that part of the germ plasm which was designed for the production of the limb. So, too, if the germ plasm is simply stored in the individual, it is impossible to conceive any way that it can be affected by the conditions around the individual in such a way as to explain the inheritance of acquired variations. If acquired variations do not affect the germ plasm they cannot be inherited, and if the germ plasm is only a bit of protoplasmic substance handed down from generation to generation, we can not believe that acquired variations can influence it.
From such considerations as these have arisen two quite different views among biologists; and, while it is not our purpose to deal with disputed points, these views are so essential to our subject that they must be briefly referred to. One cla.s.s of biologists adhere closely to the view already outlined, and insist for this reason that acquired variations _can not_ under any conditions be inherited. They insist that all inherited variations are congenital, and due therefore to direct variations in the germ plasm, and that all instances of seeming inheritance of acquired variations are capable of other explanation. The other school is equally insistent that there are abundant instances of the inheritance of acquired characters, claiming that these proofs are so strong as to demand their acceptance. Hence this cla.s.s of biologists insist that the explanation of heredity given as a simple handing down from generation to generation of a germ plasm is not complete, and that while it is doubtless the foundation of heredity, it must be modified in some way so as to admit of the inheritance of acquired characters. There is no question that has excited such a wide interest in the biological world during the last fifteen years as this one of the inheritance of acquired characters. Until about 1884 the question was not seriously raised. Heredity was known to be a fact, and it was believed that while congenital characters are more commonly inherited, acquired characters may also frequently be handed down from generation to generation. The facts which we have noted of the continuity of germ plasm have during the last fifteen years led many biologists to deny the possibility of the latter. The debate which arose has continued vigorously, and can not be regarded as settled at the present time. One result of this debate is clear. It has been shown beyond question that while the inheritance of congenital characters is the rule, the inheritance of acquired characters is at all events unusual. At the present time many naturalists would be inclined to think that the balance of evidence indicates that under certain conditions certain kinds of acquired characters may be inherited, although this is still disputed by others.
Into this discussion we cannot enter here. The reason for referring to it at all is, however, evident. We are searching for nature"s method of building machines. It is perfectly clear that variations among animals and plants are the foundations of the successive steps in advance made in this machine building, but of course only such variations as can be transmitted to posterity can serve any purpose in this development. If therefore it should prove that acquired characters can not be inherited, then we should no longer be able to look upon the direct influence of the surroundings as a factor in the machine building. We should then have nothing left except the congenital variations produced by s.e.xual union, or the direct variation of the germ plasm as a factor for advance. If, however, it shall prove that acquired characters may even occasionally be inherited, then the direct effect of the environment upon the individual will serve as a decided a.s.sistance in our problem.
Here, then, we have before us the factors which have been concerned in the building of the living machine under nature"s hands. Reproduction keeps in existence a constantly active, unstable, readily modified organism as a basis upon which to build. Variation offers constantly new modifications of the type, while heredity insures that the modifications produced in the machine by the influences which give rise to the variations shall be permanently fixed.
==Method of Machine Building.==--_Natural Selection._ The method by which these factors have worked together to build up the living machines is easily understood in its general aspects, although there are many details as yet unsolved. The general facts connected with the evolution of animals are matters of common knowledge. We need do no more than outline the subject, since it is well understood by all. The basis of the method is _natural selection_, which acts in this machine building something as follows:
The law of reproduction, as we have seen, produces new individuals with extraordinary rapidity, and as a result more individuals are born than can possibly find sustenance in the world. Hence only a few of the offspring of any animal or plant can live long enough to produce offspring in turn. The many must die that the few may live; and there is, therefore, a constant struggle among the individuals that are born for food or for room in the world. In this _struggle for existence_ of course the weakest will go to the wall, while those that are best adapted for their place in life will be the ones to get food, live, and reproduce their kind. This is at all events true among the lower animals, although with mankind the law hardly applies. Now, among the individuals that are born there will be no two exactly alike, since variations are universal, many of which are congenital and thus born with the individual and transmitted by inheritance. Clearly enough those animals that have a variation which makes them a little better adapted for the struggle will be the ones to live and hence to produce offspring, while those without such advantage will be the ones to die.
We may suppose, for example, that some of the individuals had longer necks than the average. In time of scarcity of food these individuals would be able to get food that the short-necked individuals could not reach. Hence in times of famine the long-necked individuals would be the ones to survive. Now if this peculiarity were a congenital variation it would be already represented in the germ plasm, and consequently it would be inherited by the next generation. The short-necked individuals being largely destroyed in this struggle for food, it would follow that the next generation would be a little better off than the last, since all would inherit this tendency toward a long neck. A few generations would then see the disappearance of all individuals which did not show either this or some other corresponding advantage, and in this way the lengthened neck would be added permanently as a _part of the machine_.
When this time came this peculiarity would no longer give its possessors any advantage over its rivals, since all would possess it. Now, therefore, some new variation would in the same way determine which animals should live and which should die in the struggle, and in time a new modification would be added to the machine. And thus this process continues, one variation after another being added, until the machine is slowly built into a more and more complicated structure, always active but with a constantly increasing efficiency. The construction is a natural one. A mixing of germ plasm in s.e.xual reproduction or some other agencies produce congenital variations; natural selection acting upon the numerous progeny selects the best of the new variations, and heredity preserves and hands them down to posterity.
All students of whatever school recognize the force of this principle and look upon natural selection as an efficient agency in machine building. It is probably the most fundamental of the external laws that have guided the process. There are, however, certain other laws which have played a more or less subordinate part. The chief of these are the influence of migration and isolation, and the direct influence of the environment. Each of these laws has its own school of advocates, and each has been given by its advocates the chief role in the process of machine building.
==Migration and Isolation.==--The production of the various types of machines has been undoubtedly facilitated by the migrations of animals and the isolation of different groups of descendants from each other by various natural barriers. The variations which occur in organisms are so great that they would sometimes run into abnormal structures were it not for the fact that s.e.xual reproduction constantly tends to reduce them.
In an open country where animals and plants interbreed freely, it will commonly happen that individuals with certain peculiarities will mate with others without such peculiarities, and the offspring will therefore inherit the peculiarity not in increased degree but in decreased degree.
This constant interbreeding of individuals will tend to prevent the formation of many modifications in the machine which become started by variations. Now plainly if some such individuals, with a peculiar variation, should migrate into a new territory or become isolated from their relatives which do not have similar variations, these individuals will be obliged to breed with each other. The result will be that the next generation, arising thus from two parents each of which shows the same variation, will show it also in equal or increased degree.
Migrations and isolations will thus tend to _fix_ in the machine variations which s.e.xual union or other influences inaugurate. Now in the history of the earth"s surface there have been many changes which tend to bring about such migration and isolations, and this factor has doubtless played a more or less important part in the building of the machines. How great a part we cannot say, nor is it necessary for our purpose to decide; for in all these cases the machine building has only been the result of the hereditary transmission of congenital variation under certain peculiar conditions. The fundamental process is the same as already considered, only the details of its working being in question.
==Direct Influence of the Environment.==--Under this head we have a subject of great importance. It is an undoubted fact that the environment has a very decided effect upon the machine. These direct effects of the environment are very positive and in great variety. The tropical sun darkens the human skin; cold climate stunts the growth of plants; lack of food dwarfs all animals and plants, and hundreds of other similar examples could be selected. Another cla.s.s of similar influences are those produced by _use_ and _disuse_. Beyond question the use of an organ tends to increase its size, and disuse to decrease it.
Combats of animals with each other tend to increase their strength, flight from enemies their running powers, etc.
Now all these effects are direct modifications of the machine, and if they are only transmitted to following generations so as to become _permanent_ modifications, they will be most important agencies in the machine building. If, on the other hand, they are not transmitted by heredity, they can have no permanent effect. We have here thus again the problem of the inheritance of acquired characters. We have already noticed the uncertainty surrounding this subject, but the almost universal belief in the inheritance of such characters requires us to refer to it again. It is uncertain whether such direct effects have any influence upon the offspring, and therefore whether they have anything to do with this machine building. Still, there are many facts which point strongly in this direction. For example, as we study the history of the horse family we find that an originally five-toed animal began to walk more and more on its middle toe, in such a way that this toe received more and more use, while the outer toes were used less and less. Now that such a habit would produce an effect upon the toes in any generation is evident; but apparently this influence extended from generation to generation, for, as the history of the animals is followed, it is found that the outer toes became smaller and smaller with the lapse of ages, while the middle one became correspondingly larger, until there was finally produced the horse with its one toe only on each foot. Now here is a line of descent or machine building in the direct line of the effects of use and disuse, and it seems very natural to suppose that the modification has been produced by the direct effect of the use of the organs. There are many other similar instances where the line of machine building has been quite parallel to the effects of use and disuse. If, therefore, acquired characters can be inherited to _any_ extent, we have, in the direct influences of the environment an important agency in machine building. This direct effect of the conditions is apparently so manifest that one school of biologists finds in it the chief cause of the variations which occur, telling us that the conditions surrounding the organism produce changes in it, and that these variations, being handed down to subsequent generations, const.i.tute the basis of the development of the machine. If this factor is entirely excluded, we are driven back upon the natural selection of congenital variations as the only kind of variations which can permanently effect the modification of the machine.
==Consciousness.==--It may be well here to refer to one other factor in the problem, because it has somewhat recently been brought into prominence. This factor is consciousness on the part of the animal.
Among plants and the lower animals this factor can have no significance, but consciousness certainly occurs among the higher animals. Just when or how it appeared are questions which are not answered, and perhaps never will be. But consciousness, after it had once made its appearance, became a controlling factor in the development of the machine. It must not be understood by this that animals have had any consciousness of the development of their body, or that they have made any conscious endeavours to modify its development. This has not always been understood. It has been frequently supposed that the claim that consciousness has an influence upon the development of an animal means that the animal has made conscious efforts to develop in certain directions. For example, it has been suggested that the tiger, conscious of the advantage of being striped, had a desire to possess stripes, and the desire caused their appearance. This is absurd. Consciousness has been a factor in the development of the machine, but an _indirect_ one.
Consciousness leads to effort, and effort has a direct influence in development. For example, an animal is conscious of hunger, and this leads to efforts on his part to obtain food. His efforts to obtain food may lead to migration or to the adoption of new kinds of food or to conflicts with various kinds of rivals, and all of these efforts are potent factors in determining the direction of development.
Consciousness, again, may lead certain animals to take pleasure in each other"s society, or to recognize that in mutual a.s.sociation they have protection against common enemies. Such a consciousness will give rise to social habits, and social habits are a very potent factor in determining the direction in which the inherited variations will tend; not, perhaps, because it effects the variations themselves, but rather because it determines which variations among the many shall be preserved and which rejected by natural selection. Consciousness may lead the antelope to recognize that he has no chance in a combat with a lion, and this will induce him to flee. The _habit_ of flight would then develop the _power_ of flight, not because the antelope desired such power, but because the animals with variations which gave increased power of flight would be the ones to escape the lion, while the slower ones would die without offspring. Thus consciousness would indirectly, though not directly, result in the lengthening of the legs of the animal and in the strengthening of his running muscles. Beyond a doubt this factor of consciousness has been a factor of no little moment in the development of the higher types of organic machines. We can as yet only dimly understand its action, but it must hereafter be counted as one of the influences in the evolution of the living machine.
But, after all, these are only questions of the method of the action of certain well demonstrated, fundamental factors. Whether by natural selection, or by the inheritance of acquired characters produced by the environment, or whether by the effect of isolation of groups of individuals, the machine building has always been produced in the same way. A machine, either through the direct influence of the environment, or as a result of s.e.xual combination of germ plasm, shows a variation from its parents. This variation proves of value to its possessor, who lives and transmits it permanently to posterity. Thus step by step, one part is added to another, until the machine has grown into the intricately adapted structure which we call the animal or plant. This has been nature"s method of building machines, all based upon the three properties possessed by the living cell--reproduction, variation, and heredity.
==Summary of Nature"s Power of Building Machines.==--Let us now notice the position we have reached. Our problem in the present chapter has been to find out whether nature possesses forces adequate to explain the building of machines with their parts accurately adapted to each other so as to act harmoniously for certain ends. Astronomy has shown that she has forces for the building of worlds; geology, that she has forces for making mountain and valley; and chemistry, that she has forces for building chemical compounds. But the organism is neither a world, nor a ma.s.s of matter, nor a chemical compound. It is a machine. Has nature any forces for machine building? We have found that by the use of the three factors, reproduction, variation, and heredity, nature is able to produce a machine of ever greater and greater complexity, with the parts all adapted to each other. Now the difference between a machine and a ma.s.s of matter is simply in the adaptation of parts to act harmoniously for definite ends. Hence if we are allowed these three factors, we can say that nature _does possess forces adequate to the manufacture of machines_. These forces are not chemical forces, and the construction of the machine has thus been brought about by forces entirely different from those which produced the chemical molecule.
But we have plainly not reached the bottom of the matter in our attempt to explain the machinery of living things. We have based the whole process upon three factors. Reproduction, variation, and heredity are the properties of all living matter; but they are not, like gravity and chemism, universal forces of nature. They occur in living organisms only. Why should they occur in living organisms, and here alone? These three properties are perhaps the most marvellous properties of nature; and surely we have not finished our task if we have based the whole process of machine building upon these mysterious phenomena, leaving them unintelligible. We must therefore now ask whether we can proceed any farther and find any explanation of these fundamental powers of the living machine.
It must be confessed that here we are at present forced to stop. We can proceed no further with any certainty, or even probability. We may say that variation and heredity are only phases of reproduction, and reproduction is a property of the living cell. We may say that this power of reproduction is dependent upon the power of a.s.similation and growth, for cell division is a result of cell growth. We may further say that growth and a.s.similation are chemical processes resulting from the oxidation of food, and that thus all of these processes are to be reduced to chemical forces. In this way we may seem to have a chemical foundation for life phenomena. But clearly this is far from satisfactory. In the first place, it utterly fails to explain why the living cell has these properties, while no other body possesses them, nor why they are possessed by living protoplasms _alone_, ceasing instantly with death. Indeed it does not tell us what death can be.
Secondly, it utterly fails to explain the marvels of cell division with resulting hereditary transmission. For all this we must fall back upon the structure of protoplasm, and say that the cell machinery is so adjusted that the machine, when acting as a whole, is capable of transforming the energy of chemical composition in certain directions.
These fundamental properties are then the properties of the cell _machine_ just as surely as printing is the property of the printing press. We can no more account for the life phenomena by chemical powers than we can for printing by chemical forces manifested in the burning of the coal in the engine room. To be sure, it is the chemical forces in the engine room that furnishes the energy, but it is the machinery of the press that explains the printing. So, while chemical forces supply life energy, it is the cell machinery that must explain the fundamental living factors. So long as this machine is intact it can continue to run and perform its duties. But it is a very delicate machine and is easily broken. When it is broken its activities cease. A broken machine can not run. It is dead. In short, we come back once more to the idea of the machinery of protoplasm, and must base our understanding of its properties upon its structure.
It is proper to state that there are still some biologists who insist that the ultimate explanation of protoplasm is purely chemical and that life phenomena may be manifested in mixtures of compounds that are purely physical mixtures and not machines. It is claimed that much of this cell structure described above is due to imperfection in microscopic methods and does not really exist in living protoplasm, while the marvellous activities described are found only in the highly organized cell, but do not belong to simple protoplasm. It is claimed that simple protoplasm consists of a physical mixture of two different compounds which form a foam when thus mixed, and that much of the described structure of protoplasm is only the appearance of this foam.
This conception is certainly not the prevalent one to-day; and even if it should be the proper one, it would still leave the cell as an extremely complicated machine. Under any view the cell is a mechanism and must be resolved into subordinate parts. It may be uncertain whether these subordinate parts are to be regarded simply as chemical compounds physically mixed, or as smaller units each of which is a smaller mechanism. At all events, at the present time we know of no such simple protoplasm capable of living activities apart from machinery, and the problem of explaining life, even in the simplest form known, remains the problem of explaining a mechanism.
==The Origin of the Cell Machine.==--We have thus set before us another problem, which is after all the fundamental one, namely, to ask whether we can tell anything of nature"s method of building the protoplasmic machine. The building of the higher animal and plant, as we have seen, is the result of the powers of protoplasm; but protoplasm itself is a machine. What has been its history?
We must first notice that no notion of _chemical evolution_ helps us out. It has been a favourite thought with some that the origin of the first living thing was the result of chemical evolution. As the result of physical forces there was produced, from the original nebulous ma.s.s, a more and more complicated system until the world was formed. Then chemical phenomena became more and more complicated until, with the production of more and more complicated compounds, protoplasm was finally produced. A few years ago, under the impulse of the idea that protoplasm was a compound, or at least a simple mixture of compounds, this thought of protoplasm as the result of chemical evolution was quite significant. _Physical forces_, _chemical forces_, and _vital forces_, explain successively the origin of _worlds_, _protoplasm_, and _organisms_. This conception has, however, no longer much significance.
We know of no such living chemical compound apart from cell machinery. A new conception of protoplasm has arisen which demands a different explanation of its origin. Since it is a machine rather than a compound, mechanical rather than chemical forces are required for its explanation.
Have we then any suggestion as to the method of the origin of this protoplasmic machine? Our answer must, at the present, be certainly in the negative. The complexity of the cell tells us plainly that it can not be the ultimate living substance which may have arisen from chemical evolution. It is made up of parts delicately adapted to act in harmony with each other, and its activity depends upon the relation of these parts. Whatever chemical forces may have accomplished, they never could have combined different bodies into linin, centrosomes, chromosomes, etc., which, as we have seen, are the basis of cell life. To account for this machine, therefore, we are driven to a.s.sume either that it was produced by some unknown intelligent power in its present condition of complex adjustment, or to a.s.sume that it has had a long history of building by successive steps, just as we have seen to be the case with the higher organisms. The latter a.s.sumption is, of course, in harmony with the general trend of thought. To-day protoplasm is produced only from other protoplasm; but, plainly, the first protoplasm on the earth must have had a different origin. We must therefore next look for facts which will enable us to understand its origin. We have seen that the animal and plant machines have been built up from the simple cell as the result of its powers acting under the ordinary conditions of nature.
Now, in accordance with this general line of thought, we shall be compelled to a.s.sume that previous to the period of building machinery which we have been considering, there was another period of machine building during which this cell machine was built by certain natural forces.
But here we are forced to stop, for nothing which we yet know gives even a hint as to the method by which this machine was produced. We have, however, seen that there are forces in nature efficient in building machines, as well as those for producing chemical compounds; and this, doubtless, suggests to us that there may be similar forces at work in building protoplasm. If we can find natural forces by which the simplest bit of living matter can be built up into a complicated machine like the ox, with its many delicately adjusted parts, it is certainly natural to imagine that the same forces may have built this simpler machine with which we started. But such a conclusion is for a simple reason impossible. We have seen that the essential factor in this machine building is reproduction, with the correlated powers of variation and heredity. Without these forces we could not have advanced in this machine building at all. But these properties are themselves the result of the machinery of protoplasm. We have no reason for thinking that this property of reproduction can occur in any other object in nature except this protoplasmic machine. Of course, then, if reproduction is the result of the structure of protoplasm we can not use this factor in explaining the origin of this protoplasm. The powers of the completed machine can not be brought forward to account for its origin. Thus the one fundamental factor for machine building is lacking, and if we are to explain nature"s method of producing protoplasm from simpler structures, we must either suppose that the _parts_ of the cell are capable of reproduction and subject to heredity, or we must look for some other method. Such a road has however not yet been found, nor have we any idea in what direction to look. But the fact that nature has methods of machine building, as we have seen, may hold out the possibility that some day we may discover her method of building this primitive living machine, the cell.
It is useless to try to go further at present. The origin of living matter is shrouded in as great obscurity as ever. We must admit that the disclosures of the modern microscope have complicated rather than simplified this problem. While a few years ago chemists and biologists were eagerly expecting to discover a method of manufacturing a bit of living matter by artificial means, that hope has now been practically abandoned. The task is apparently hopeless. We can manipulate chemical forces and produce an endless series of chemical compounds. But we can not manipulate the minute bits of matter which make up the living machine. Since living matter is made of the adjustment of these microscopic parts of matter, we can not hope to make a bit of living matter until we find some way of making these little parts and adjusting them together. Most students of protoplasm have therefore abandoned all expectation of making even the simplest living thing. We are apparently as far from the real goal of a natural explanation of life as we were before the discovery of protoplasm.
==General Summary.==--It is now desirable to close this discussion of seemingly somewhat unconnected topics by bringing them together in a brief summary. This will enable us to see more clearly the position in which science stands to-day upon this matter of the natural explanation of living phenomena, and to picture to ourselves more concisely our knowledge of the living machine.
The problem we have set before us is to find out to what extent it is possible to account for vital phenomena by the application of ordinary natural laws and forces, and therefore to find out whether it is necessary to a.s.sume that there are forces needed to explain life which are different from those found in other realms of nature, or whether vital forces are all correlated with physical forces. It has been evident at a glance that the living body is a machine. Like other machines it consists of parts adjusted to each other for the accomplishment of definite ends, and its action depends upon the adjustment of its parts. Like other machines, it neither creates nor destroys energy, but simply converts the potential energy of its foods into some form of active energy, and, like other machines, its power ceases when the machine is broken.
With this understanding the problem clearly resolved itself into two separate ones. The first was to determine to what extent known physical and chemical laws and forces are adequate to an explanation of the various phenomena of life. The second was to determine whether there are any known forces which can furnish a natural explanation of the origin of the living machine. Manifestly, if the first of these problems is insolvable, the second is insolvable also.
In the study of the first problem we have reached the general conclusion that the secondary phenomena of life are readily explained by the application of physical and chemical forces acting in the living machine. These secondary phenomena include such processes as the digestion and absorption of food, circulation, respiration, excretion, bodily motion, etc. Nervous phenomena also doubtless come under this head, at least so far as concerns nervous force. We have been obliged, however, to exclude from this correlation the mental phenomena. Mental phenomena can not as yet be measured, and have not yet been shown to be correlated with physical energy. In other words, it has not yet been proved that mental force is energy at all; and if it is not energy, then of course it can not be included in the laws which govern the physical energy of the universe. Although a close relation exists between physical changes in the brain cells and mental phenomena, no further connection has yet been drawn between mental power and physical force.
All other secondary phenomena, however, are intelligently explained by the action of natural forces in the machinery of the living organism.
While we have thus found that the secondary phenomena of life are intelligible as the result of the structure of the machine, certain other fundamental phenomena have been constantly forcing themselves upon our attention as a _foundation_ of these secondary activities. The power of contraction, the power of causing certain kinds of chemical change to occur which result in metabolism, the property of sensibility, the property of reproduction--these are fundamental to all living activity, and are, after all, the real phenomena which we wish to explain. But these are not peculiar to the complicated machines. We can discard all the apparent machinery of the animal or plant and find these properties still developed in the simplest bit of living matter. To learn their significance, therefore, we have turned to the study of the simplest form of matter in which these fundamental properties are manifested.
This led us at once to the study of the so-called protoplasm, for protoplasm is the simplest known form of matter that is alive.
Protoplasm itself at first seemed to be a h.o.m.ogeneous body, and was looked upon as a chemical compound of high complexity. If this were true its properties would depend upon its composition and would be explained by the action of chemical forces. Such a conception would have quickly solved the problem, for it would reduce living properties to chemical powers. But the conception proved to be delusive. Protoplasm, at least the simplest form known to possess the fundamental life properties, soon showed itself to be no chemical compound, but a machine of wonderful intricacy.
The fundamental phenomena of life and of protoplasm have proved to be both chemical and mechanical. Metabolism is the result of the oxidation of food, and motion is an instance of transference of force. Our problem then resolved itself into finding the power that guides the action of these natural forces. Food will not undergo such an oxidation except in the presence of protoplasm, nor will the phenomena of metabolism occur except in the presence of _living_ protoplasm. Clearly, then, the living protoplasm contains within itself the power of guiding this play of chemical force in such a way as to give rise to vital phenomena, and our search must be not for chemical force but for this guiding principle.
Our study of protoplasm has told us clearly enough that we must find this guiding principle in the interaction of the machinery within the protoplasm. The microscope has told us plainly that these fundamental principles are based upon machinery. The cell division (reproduction) is apparently controlled by the centrosomes; the heredity by the chromosomes; the constructive metabolism by the nucleus in general, while the destructive metabolism is also seated in the cell substance outside the nucleus. Whether these statements are strictly accurate in detail does not particularly affect the general conclusion. It is clearly enough demonstrated that the activities of the protoplasmic body are dependent upon the relation of its different parts. Although we have got rid of the complicated machinery of the organism in general, we are still confronted with the machinery of the cell.
But our a.n.a.lysis can not, at present, go further. Our knowledge of this machine has not as yet enabled us to gain any insight as to its method of action. We can not yet conceive how this machine controls the chemical and physical forces at its disposal in such a way as to produce the orderly result of life. The strict correlation between the forces of the physical universe and those manifested by this protoplasm tells us that a transformation of energy occurs within it, but of the method of that transformation we as yet know nothing. Irritability, movement, metabolism, and reproduction appear to be not chemical properties of a compound, but mechanical properties of a machine. Our mechanical a.n.a.lysis of the living machine stops short before it reaches any foundation in the chemical forces of nature.
It is thus clearly apparent that the phenomena of life are dependent upon the machinery of living things, and we have therefore the second question of the _origin_ of this machinery to answer. Chemical forces and mechanical forces have been laboriously investigated, but neither appear adequate to the manufacture of machines. They produce only chemical compounds and worlds with their mountains and seas. The construction of artificial machines has demanded intelligence. But here is a natural machine--the organism. It is the only machine produced by natural methods, so far as we know; and we have therefore next asked whether there are, in nature, simple forces competent to build machines such as living animals and plants?
In pursuance of this question we have found that the complicated machines have been built out of the simpler ones by the action of known forces and laws. The factors in this machine building are simply those of the fundamental vital properties of the simplest protoplasmic machine. Reproduction, heredity, and variation, acting under the ever-changing conditions of the earth"s surface, are apparently all that are needed to explain the building of the complex machines out of the simpler ones. Nature _has_ forces adequate to the building of machines as well as forces adequate to the formation of chemical compounds and worlds.
But here again we are unable to base our explanation upon chemical and physical forces. Reproduction, heredity, and variation are properties of the cell machine, and we are therefore thrown back upon the necessity of explaining the origin of this machine. Can we find a mechanical or chemical explanation of the origin of protoplasm? A chemical explanation of the cell is impossible, since it is not a chemical compound, but a piece of mechanism. The explanation given for the origin of animals and plants is also here apparently impossible. The factors upon which that explanation depended are factors of this completed machine itself, and can not be used to explain its origin. We are left at present therefore without any foundation for further advance. The cells must have had a history of construction, but we do not as yet conceive any forces which may be looked upon as contributing to that history. Whether life phenomena can be manifested by any mixture of compounds simpler than the cell we do not yet know.
The great problems still remaining for solution, which have hardly been touched by modern biology in all its endeavours to find a mechanical explanation of the living machine, are, therefore, three. First, the relation of mentality to the general phenomena of the correlation of force; second, the intelligible understanding of the mechanism of protoplasm which enables it to guide the blind chemical and physical forces of nature so as to produce definite results; third, the kind of forces which may have contributed to the origin of that simplest living machine upon whose activities all vital phenomena rest--the living cell.
THE END.
==THE LIBRARY OF USEFUL STORIES.==
The Story of a Grain of Wheat. By W.C. EDGAR.