The Story of the Living Machine / A Review of the Conclusions of Modern Biology in Regard / to the Mechanism Which Controls the Phenomena of Living / Activity

by H. W. Conn

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 assume 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 homogeneous 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 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?

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.