FURTHER SPECULATIONS UPON THE 

 ORIGIN OF LIFE 



By CHARLES WALKER, D.Sc. 



The specialisation which has been the inevitable result of the 

 enormous increase in the general fund of knowledge during the 

 past sixty or seventy years is rendered very evident in the 

 recent discussion on the origin of living matter ; it appears to 

 be impossible, at the present time, for a man to possess more 

 than a superficial acquaintance with any branch of science 

 excepting that to which he has devoted himself particularly. 

 So great is the accumulation of recorded observations that, as 

 a rule, it is possible to keep up to date only in one section 

 of one of the great branches of scientific knowledge ; yet to 

 consider this problem properly it is necessary to call in the 

 help of biology and chemistry in some of their latest stages and 

 probably also physics. 



It appears to me that in this discussion each biologist has 

 placed the solution of the problem where he sees the fewest 

 difficulties are to be faced ; this moreover has not been where 

 his knowledge has been most detailed and intimate. Such a 

 course is a very natural one to adopt and I shall be obliged to 

 follow to some extent the example of better men and do the 

 same thing myself. 



Upon one point biologists seem to be more or less agreed — 

 that the problem is fundamentally one for the chemists. 

 Chemists, however, are not unanimous, I notice, that the bio- 

 logists have done enough of their share of the work to place 

 them in a position to state the problem in such a manner that 

 it can be handled by the chemists. 



As has always been the case in such discussions, meta- 

 physical conceptions have been offered as explanations by 

 several biologists. Our knowledge of the properties of living 

 matter and of the possible conditions under which it may have 

 originated has always been hindered, never helped, by meta- 

 physical conceptions, from those propounded by the author of 



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