8o A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH 



could not have brought about the spontaneous generation 

 of organisms in the remote past any more than they can 

 to-day. For this reason all such hypotheses sounded extremely 

 unconvincing and not a single one of them served as a basis 

 for further fruitful investigations. 



We may here cite, by way of illustration, only a few of 

 the many investigations referred to above. F. J. Allen^^ dated 

 the emergence of life at the time when water already formed 

 the primitive ocean on the surface of the Earth. At that time 

 the heavy, stable, insoluble compounds were laid down in 

 the crust of the Earth while the less stable ones, in process 

 of decomposition, were present in gaseous form in the atmo- 

 sphere and in solution in the water. Nitrogen, oxygen and 

 carbon dioxide were present in the water and atmosphere. 



In the presence of electric discharges occurring as flashes 

 of lightning incessantly passing through the warm, moist 

 atmosphere, ammonia and oxides of nitrogen were formed 

 and dissolved in the rain which carried them down into the 

 water. Here they encountered dissolved carbon dioxide, 

 chlorides, sulphates, alkali phosphates and other metallic 

 salts. It was then possible for the compounds of nitrogen, 

 to which Allen attached special importance, to enter into 

 reactions with various other substances. On their combina- 

 tion with carbon dioxide oxygen was liberated and the first 

 living substance was formed and already exhibited essen- 

 tially the same properties which we find in organisms at the 

 present day. 



Allen did not go into much detail about the formation of 

 living matter. He only made the suggestion that, in the 

 transfer of oxygen from or to nitrogen, sunlight might have 

 played a significant part when it was absorbed by iron com- 

 pounds dissolved or suspended in the water. Taking a general 

 view of all these hypotheses it is impossible to conceive how 

 the forces invoked by Allen could give rise to organised 

 matter. 



Similar hypotheses were developed somewhat later by H. F. 

 Osborn. At the beginning of his book. The origin and 

 evolution of life,^^ he describes the Earth before life was 

 present on it, closely wrapped, as by a blanket, by the atmo- 

 sphere of that time which contained large amounts of water 



