13. There is therefore an ambiguity in the common statement that organized matter is not _ordinary_ matter. Indisputable in one sense, this is eminently disputable when it is interpreted as evidence of a peculiar Vital Force “wholly unallied with the primary energy of Motion.” If by “ordinary matter” be meant earths, crystals, gases, vapors, then assuredly organized matter is not ordinary. “Between the _living_ state of matter and its _non-living_ state,” says Dr. Beale, “there is an absolute and irreconcilable difference; so far from our being able to demonstrate that the non-living passes by gradations into or gradually assumes the scale or condition of the _living_, the transition is sudden and abrupt, and matter already in the living state may pass into the non-living condition in the same sudden and complete manner.”[3] The ambiguity here is sensible in the parallel case of the difference between crystallizable and coagulable matter, or between one crystal and another. If we can decompose the organic into the inorganic, this shows that the elements of the one are elements of the other; and if we are not yet able to recompose the inorganic elements into organic matter (not at least in its more complex forms), may this not be due to the fact that we are ignorant of the proximate synthesis, ignorant of the precise way in which the elements are combined? I may have every individual part of a machine before me, but unless I know the proper position of each, I cannot with the parts reconstruct the machine. Indeed the very common argument on which so much stress is laid in favor of some mysterious Principle as the source of organic phenomena, namely, that human skill is hopelessly baffled in the attempt to make organic substances, still more a living cell, is futile. Men can make machines, it is said, but not organisms, _ergo_ organisms must have a spiritual origin. But the fact is that no man can make a machine, _unless_ he take advantage of the immense traditions of our race, and apply the skill of millions who have worked and thought before him, slowly and tentatively discovering the necessary means of mechanical effect. The greatest thinker, or the deepest scholar, who did not place himself in the line of the tradition, and learn the principles of mechanism, and the properties of the materials, would be as incapable of making a watch, as the physiologist now is of making a cell. But the skill of man has already succeeded in making many organic substances, and will perhaps eventually succeed in making a cell, certainly will, if ever the special synthesis which binds the elements together should be discovered. Not that such a discovery would alter the position of Biology in relation to Chemistry. The making of albumen, nay, the construction of an organism in the laboratory, would not in the least affect the foundation of Biology, would not obliterate the radical difference between organisms and anorganisms. It is the