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 analysis 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 analysis 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?