PREFACE 



My FIRST WORK on the origin of life was published 

 as a small booklet in 1924 {Proiskhozhdenie zhizni. 

 Moscow: Izd. Moskovskii Rabochii). In it I for- 

 mulated, though very schematically, the essentials of this 

 problem. 



I explained these propositions in an expanded form in my 

 book Vozniknovenie zhizni na zemle [The origin of life on the 

 Earth) (Moscow: Izd. AN SSSR), the first edition of which 

 was published in 1936. The second edition was published 

 in 1941 without substantial alteration. 



After a lapse of 20 years there has accumulated a very 

 large amount of factual material bearing on the origin of life 

 derived from various fields of scientific endeavour. This 

 allows us to draw a considerably more definite picture of the 

 successive stages in the development of matter on the way 

 to the origin of life. 



The 1941 edition of the book has, accordingly, been thor- 

 oughly revised in the light of this new factual material. The 

 only important features which have been retained from the 

 earlier editions are the fundamental ideas and propositions. 



I wish to express my profound thanks to Professors N. M. 

 Sisakyan, A. G. Pasynskii, A. N. Belozerskii, V. L. Kretovich 

 and G. A. Deborin for looking over particular chapters of the 

 book and for their valuable criticisms and advice, and also to 

 all my colleagues in the A.N. Bach Institute of Biochemistry 

 of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. who have helped 

 me in my work on this edition. 



I wish also to make special recognition of the hard and 

 valuable work expended on this task by Candidate in Bio- 

 logical Sciences N. S. Gel'man. 



