The Washington herald., 1913-02-03
THE OPEN FORUM
CHEMICAL CREATION
OF HUMAN LIFE
Chemists in Their Laboratories Do Not
Take Into Account
the Soul.

To the Editor: The announcement
made through the medium of your issue
of January 81 to the effect that
the creation % human life by chemical
means is possible" while not exactly an
original declaration, is none the less
repugnant 10 sound philosophy and 10
nature. Observation that is restrained
bv specialization in fields of investiga-
ton where specialization is not possible.
seems TO be unable 10 grasp the ultimate
Significance even of its own conclusions.
No one, for instance, who is accustomed
to the exercise Of unsophisticatcd COM
mon sense. could imagine otherwise than
that the whole universe is alive" for
If only one single atom of the universe
should become wholly extinct that is
TO say. if 1t should finally cease TO occupy
its present relation TO the economy of
nature and become unfit to assume a
changed relation thereto. there would be
no universe. But life as II appeals 10
our understanding is form OF energy.
and by the exercise of our external senses
alone we Justly conclude that nature has
stamped all matter with different forms
OF energy. which. acting through mat
ter I'm different ways. produces different
phenomena.
We all admit that animals are con-
scious and gifted with the power of
thought and imagination" but II is nee
essary before the animal can exercise
these gifts that the impression which
wills II to set the power in motion which
enables it to move its body from one
place to another place, for instance. shall
have its origin in some external or in
ternal circumstance. Impressions do not
reside in that part OF the organism which
receives them, and likewise the power
that causes motion does not reside in
the part which moves.
Consciousness, as We have been ac-
customcd to estimate its value to the
scheme OF society. either of men or of
animals, is required to exhibit some de-
gree at least of intellectually. even
should that not extend beyond the single
faculty OF realizing the internally created
impression which the want of food Gre
ates, or the externally created impress
sion that causes 1t to move its body into
the light and warmth OF the sun.
The first law of nature is said to be
that of self preservation, and II seems
that all animals are more or less strongly
impressed to obey that law whenever
existence itself is menaced. But why
is IL If plants are conscious and capable
of exercising strategy and forethought."
that they exhibit no signs of obedience
to the law OF self preservation when
destruction? Consciousness implies feel
ing, either of hope and pleasure. or OF
fear and of pain, SO that when the field
in which animals and plants live to-
gether is inundated by the swollen
stream, the former being endowed with
means for effecting their
escape use those means, and remain con-
scious of the pleasure of living, while
the latter not being endowed with the
Af ~
Meath the waters, and their strategy
avails them not in the moment of great
est danger to the continuance OF their
existence.
Granting that the chemist of the fu-
ture will labor so that men will be made
in factories as chickens are now Matched
in incubators," the chemist. after having
arrived at the end of his chemical tether.
must forth from his laboratory and en-
deavor to discover by what means
his own nature shall be changed so as
to fit him to conceive Of the nature of
the missing link in his invention, namely,
the principle that will set the parts of
his invention in motion so that II shall
be able to exercise the means of obtain
ing subsistence. and not. perish of hun
ger in the making.
The being who from some internal or
external cause is deprived Of motion.
sensation. and Intellectual consciousness,
and is still suffused with the warmth of
life, and whose parts remain intact or
not seriously impaired, never seems to
have been suggested as a subject upon
which the chemist might operate. and
carry out the less complex procedure of
the temporarily suspended. It is
supposed. powers of life, and yet here
IS a field OF labor which is at once the
most practical. the noblest. and the
yrandest in all the arts and sciences. a
field that is open for the exercise OF pre-
,ision and sagacity, but which has been
dominated by empiricism from time i'm