CONCLUSION 



IN coNCLUSiOxN I sliould like to spend a little time on a 

 question which is very often put to me concerning the 

 origin of life, the question as to the possibility of life 

 originating now, in our own time. In the scientific literature, 

 and especially in the literature of popular science, there is 

 rather a lot of confusion on this subject. This seems to be 

 due to the fact that the problem itself is commonly construed 

 in the most diverse ways. It would therefore be worth while 

 to consider all its possible variants. 



Does life arise now, at the present time? Yes, it undoubtedly 

 does. Life, as one of the forms of the motion of matter, must 

 arise every time suitable conditions for it occur at any place 

 in the Universe. Contemporary astronomical evidence shows 

 convincingly that even now, in various parts of our galaxy, 

 there are being formed new stars and new planetary systems. 

 No doubt on many of these planets the process of develop- 

 ment of matter is following a course analogous to that which it 

 followed on the Earth, and thus the development of life must 

 be proceeding on them. 



However, the people who put the question are usually 

 concerned with a more limited aspect of the matter, being 

 interested in whether life is coming into being now on the 

 Earth, and not in the Universe in general. This is another 

 aspect of our problem, but even when the question is under- 

 stood in this way we must still give a positive answer. Every 

 day we observe the birth of living things. Living things 

 arise now, but only through the agency of other living things. 



The origin of living things by these means can only take 

 place at a very high stage in the development of matter. 

 With the origin of life, i.e. metabolism, there arose synthetic 

 paths and new and extremely effective methods of building 

 up living material. Obviously this could not take place 

 before the origin of life and therefore the development of 

 matter from the lifeless to the living stage took place at 

 that time by very slow and involved means as we have shown 



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