Professor Schaefer, in his presidential address before the British Association in 1912, argued that all the main characteristics of living matter, such as assimilation and disassimilation, growth and reproduction, spontaneous and amoeboid movement, osmotic pressure, karyokinesis, etc., were equally apparent in the non-living; therefore he concluded that life is only one of the many chemical reactions, and that it is not improbable that it will yet be produced by chemical synthesis in the laboratory.  The logic of the position taken by Professor Schaefer and of the school to which he belongs, demands this artificial production of life—­an achievement that seems no nearer than it did a half-century ago.  When it has been attained, the problem will be simplified, but the mystery of life will by no means have been cleared up.  One follows these later biochemists in working out their problem of the genesis of life with keen interest, but always with a feeling that there is more in their conclusions than is justified by their premises.  For my own part, I am convinced that whatever is, is natural, but to obtain life I feel the need of something of a different order from the force that evokes the spark from the flint and the steel, or brings about the reaction of chemical compounds.  If asked to explain what this something is that is characteristic of living matter, I should say intelligence.

The new school of biologists start with matter that possesses extraordinary properties—­with matter that seems inspired with the desire for life, and behaving in a way that it never will behave in the laboratory.  They begin with the earth’s surface warm and moist, the atmosphere saturated with watery vapor and carbon dioxide and many other complex unstable compounds; then they summon all the material elements of life—­carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, with a little sodium, chlorine, iron, sulphur, phosphorus, and others—­and make these run together to form a jelly-like body called a colloid; then they endow this jelly mass with the power of growth, and of subdivision when it gets too large; they make it able to absorb various unstable compounds from the air, giving it internal stores of energy, “the setting free of which would cause automatic movements in the lump of jelly.”  Thus they lay the foundations of life.  This carbonaceous material with properties of movement and subdivision due to mechanical and physical forces is the immediate ancestor of the first imaginary living being, the protobion.  To get this protobion the chemists summon a reagent known as a catalyser.  The catalyser works its magic on the jelly mass.  It sets up a wonderful reaction by its mere presence, without parting with any of its substance.  Thus, if a bit of platinum which has this catalytic power is dropped into a vessel containing a mixture of oxygen and hydrogen, the two gases instantly unite and form water.  A catalyser introduced in the primordial jelly liberates energy and gives the substance power to break up the various complex unstable compounds into food, and promote growth and subdivision.  In fact, it awakens or imparts a vital force and leads to “indefinite increase, subdivision, and movement.”