EVOLUTIONARY THEORIES 93 



similar in character to those which have been instrumental in 

 producing all other forms of matter in the universe ; in other 

 words, to a process of gradual evolution. . . . 



Looking, therefore, at the evolution of living matter by the 

 light which is shed upon it by the study of the evolution of 

 matter in general, we are led to regard it as having been pro- 

 duced, not by a sudden alteration, whether exerted by a natural 

 or supernatural agency, but by a gradual process of change from 

 material which was lifeless, through material on the borderland 

 between the inanimate and the animate to material which has 

 all the characteristics to which we attach the term ' life '. 



The actual process of evolution of organic matter was still 

 only rather roughly sketched by Schiifer. He spoke, though 

 very vaguely, of the formation of organic substances and 

 then of the development of masses of colloidal slime which 

 possessed the power of assimilation. He then spoke of the 

 differentiation of certain phosphorus-rich parts of the living 

 matter, then of the development of enzymes and finally of the 

 differentiation of the nucleus of the cell. Schafer considered 

 that any more detailed hypothesis as to the direction and 

 causes of this evolution was unwarrantable in the light of 

 the facts known at that time. 



K. Timiryazev^* thought very highly of these statements 

 by Schafer. In his article From the scientific chronicle of 

 1^12 he reviewed Schafer's address in detail and wrote: 



We are forced to believe that living matter, like all other 

 material phenomena, was brought into being by evolution. The 

 evolutionary theory now embraces not only biology but all the 

 other natural sciences, astronomy, geology, chemistry and physics. 

 It convinces us that the transition from the inorganic to the 

 organic world was also accomplished by a process of evolution. 



More than ten years had passed since Schafer gave his 

 address when an article on the origin of life on the Earth 

 by P. BecquereP' appeared in a French astronomical journal. 

 The chief interest in this paper lay in the devastating criti- 

 cism to which its author submitted the theory of panspermia. 

 On the basis of his own experiments he demonstrated most 

 convincingly the impossibility that living things could have 

 reached the Earth from interstellar space. In place of this 



