II 



THE PROBLEM OF ORIGINS 



CHAPTER I 

 THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



§ 1. The Theory of Spontaneous Generation 



Strictly speaking, the theory of Transformism is not con- 

 cerned with the initial production of organic species, but rather 

 with the subsequent differentiation and multiplication of such 

 species by transmutation of the original forms. This tech- 

 nical sense, however, is embalmed only in the term trans- 

 formism and not in its synonym evolution. The signification 

 of the latter term is less definite. It may be used to denote 

 any sort of development or origination of one thing from 

 another. Hence the problem of the formation of organic 

 species is frequently merged with the problem of the transfor- 

 mation of species under the common title of evolution. 



This extension of the evolutionary concept, in its widest 

 sense, to the problem of the origin of life on our globe is known 

 as the hypothesis of abiogenesis or spontaneous generation. 

 It regards inorganic matter as the source of organic life not 

 merely in the sense of a passive cause, out of which the pri- 

 mordial forms of life were produced, but in the sense of an 

 active cause inasmuch as it ascribes the origin of life to 

 the exclusive agency of dynamic principles inherent in inor- 

 ganic matter, namely, the physicochemical energies that are 

 native to mineral matter. Life, in other words, is assumed 

 to have arisen spontaneously, that is, by means of a syntl^esis 



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