HOW DID LIFE ORIGINATE? 5 



ing them or by depriving them of nourishment. Furthermore, 

 the chance of locating such a new living unit in this low size 

 bracket, of perhaps transient existence, and at unknown place of 

 origin^ would be very slight. 



If a new or a modified self-duplicating agency arises in a cell, 

 it may persist there, and its presence may lead to chemical conse- 

 quences which are beneficial to the cell or to the organism of 

 which the cell is part. If it is carried on to succeeding genera- 

 tions, it may result in evolutionary advance or retrogression (see 

 Chapter 11). Where the chemical consequences of the new agency 

 are harmful to the cell or its organism, they may cause disease or 

 death (see Chapter 10). The cell or its organism may respond by 

 forming a specific antibody which will destroy or inhibit the new 

 agent or its harmful products, just as may happen to any antigen 

 (see Chapters 7 and 8). 



The formation and establishment of a new or a modified self- 

 duplicating mechanism in any cell or organism is, in effect, the 

 creation of a new living unit at or near the molecular level. Such 

 a process may well be of common occurrence, even though the 

 new units thus formed may not be able to survive if removed from 

 the special milieu in which they appear. Units like mitochondria 

 and viruses may thus be formed de novo, even though they may 

 also be formed by the degeneration of parasitic or symbionic 

 invaders, along the lines suggested by Prof. Robert H. Green. 

 But whatever was the structure of the original living unit which 

 initiated life on this earth, it must have been able to start life 

 and to persist on the basis of what inanimate nature could then 

 supply. The origin of new units, or the modification of some of 

 the existing units, would greatly add to the evolutionary possi- 

 bilities. 



Professor Michael I. Pupin of Columbia University thus con- 

 cluded an address at a dinner in honor of Sir James Hopwood 

 Jeans, Professor of Astronomy at The Royal Institution: 9 



"Science cannot penetrate the mysterious veil which covers the 

 face of the space-time entity, separating the world of ultimate 

 reality from the world presented to our senses and interpreted 

 by mere pictures of mathematical symbols. Faith alone pene- 

 trates it and finds behind it the throne of the divinity which cre- 

 ated that space-time entity and filled it with electrons and protons, 

 and with their offspring, the omnipresent photons, the tiniest and 

 liveliest energy granules in the ever-expanding interstellar space. 



