Introduction 



THE theories about the origin of Hfe upon the 

 earth which have hitherto been promulgated by 

 biologists and others have had the charming quality 

 of naivete, but have not, on the whole, been other- 

 wise convincing. Furthermore, they suffer from the 

 common defect of lacking any possibility of experi- 

 mental test. Perhaps primitive living substance 

 did ride from somewhere to the earth some time ago, 

 on the back of a meteorite, but precisely how is 

 one to prove it? Or, perhaps, as Arrhenius urged, 

 some spores came here from somewhere else on their 

 own. But again one's only epistemological resource 

 in dealing with such an idea is that kind of faith 

 which sustains the embattled spiritualist in his 

 struggles with scoffers. 



That basic doctrine of biology, Omne vivum ex 

 vivo, is, of course, in the absence of any rigorously 

 defined concept of life, a perfect example of dogmatic 

 mysticism, when philosophically considered.^ And, 



^ The objection will at once be raised that Omne vivum ex vivo is a state- 

 ment of fact, not of dogma. But the crucial evidential basis lies only in the 

 circumstance that the implied opposite has not yet been objectively demon- 

 strated. 



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