78 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



IS A SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION OF LIFE POSSIBLE? 



By Professor OTTO C. GLASER 



UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 



THE restoration of this question in recent times to a position of 

 some apparent respectability among the biological problems of 

 the day is a striking example, not only of the vitality of misconcep- 

 tions, but also of the vanity of men. Of course, we do not know all 

 about life, or anything else, and probably never shall, but the outcome 

 of this confession bears no resemblance whatever to the hopeless figure 

 of a future, discounted, and forever condemned to total silence. To 

 refuse the men of to-morrow the chance to explain what they can, may 

 produce in some minds a pleasing artistic, or even philosophic effect, 

 but no one can cut short the road to truth, or travel thither on his own 

 terms, for the conditions under which nature transports us are rigid, 

 unfavorable, and as plain as the rules printed on a railroad ticket. Nor 

 is the rate low, for she demands not only money and unlimited patience, 

 but all of our fondest prejudices, and our most natural and ingrained 

 faults as well, must be left at the station window, before we depart. 

 Nature gives passage only to modest folk who do not pretend to know 

 everything before they start, and who are ready to give up the past, 

 and let bygones be bygones. 



If I were to ask for a scientific explanation of rain, I should be told 

 that at a given temperature and barometric pressure, the air dissolves 

 a limited amount of water vapor which evaporates chiefly from the 

 surface of the ocean, and rises in the sky. When cooled, as it often is 

 at high levels, or by chilling winds, the vapor condenses, and if the 

 cooling proceeds beyond a certain point, the minute spherules that 

 make up the cloud, enlarge by fusion to droplets that fall. Some of 

 the drops that leave the cloud are larger than others, and in falling 

 overtake the smaller ones, as the giant drops gliding down a window- 

 pane devour the pigmies in their path. 



While the answer given is incomplete, it is nevertheless useful, and 

 should serve my purposes, for by means of it I may decide whether or 

 not to go on a picnic, or to plant a crop. Of course I might ask for 

 more information on evaporation, and for further details concerning 

 the condensation of evaporated substances and whether the end-prod- 

 ucts of these two processes are identical. I might also wish to know 

 more about the fact that sometimes a substance rises from the ground 

 and sometimes it falls, and furthermore, how it happens that in a 

 vacuum small drops and large fall at the same rate, but, however many 



