Spontaneous Generation 47 



arisen spontaneously upon the earth from a natural 

 synthesis of non-living matter. 



It may be said that, while there is reason to admire 

 the achievements of the synthetic chemist who builds 

 up carbon compounds with creative prodigality and 

 artificially manufactures such subtle things as in- 

 digo, salicylic acid, and adrenalin, yet we do not 

 necessarily get from them much light in regard to 

 the possibilities of natural synthesis. In the first 

 place the chemist uses means — often violent — which 

 are impossible in Nature, and in the second place, 

 what in Nature could correspond to the rational 

 chemist, picking and choosing, ordering and direct- 

 ing? But the edge has been taken off this objection 

 by such researches as Professor Baly's, which show 

 how much might be effected by the action of sunlight 

 on water and carbonic acid, with some complex photo- 

 catalyst to help. No one will object to having an 

 occasional thunderstorm thrown in. 



Another objection, well deserving consideration, 

 is that our problem is not the origin of living matter 

 or protoplasm, such as we might squeeze out of a 

 sponge or some similar simple animal, but the origin 

 of a living creature, an organism, a viable unity. 

 What can one answer save that the tendency to inte- 

 gration manifested in the synthesis of protoplasm 

 may have continued into the integration which led 

 to the first organisms? These were probably very 

 short-lived, perhaps only creatures of a day, dying 

 in the cold of their first night. But their radical dis- 

 tinction was that they were going concerns, able to 



