122 The Bible of Nature 



thesis of the simplest optically active compound 

 from inorganic materials is absolutely incon- 

 ceivable." 



Not content, however, with indicating the diffi- 

 culty which the believer in abiogenesis has here 

 to face, Professor Japp went on to say perhaps, 

 in so doing, leaving the rigidly scientific position: 

 "I see no escape from the conclusion that, at the 

 moment when life first arose, a directive force came 

 into play a force of precisely the same character 

 as that which enables the intelligent operator, by 

 the exercise of his will, to select out one crystallized 

 enantiomorph and reject its asymmetric opposite/' 

 After prolonged discussion, and in view of various 

 suggestions of possible origins, he wrote : " Although 

 I no longer venture to speak of the inconceivability 

 of any mechanical explanation of the production 

 of single optically active compounds asymmetric al- 

 ways in the same sense, I am as convinced as ever 

 of the enormous improbability of any such produc- 

 tion under chance conditions." 



Apart, then, from the fact that the synthesis of 

 proteids seems still far off, apart also from the 

 fact that there is a great gap between a drop of 

 proteid and the simplest organism, we have per- 

 haps said enough to show that the hypothesis of 

 abiogenesis is not to be held with an easy mind, at- 

 tracted as we may be to it by the general evolu- 

 tionist argument. 



