PREFACE 



The question of the origin of life on our earth is of such 

 fundamental importance that science should make every 

 conceivable effort to solve it even though up to a short time 

 ago very little was known about it. We should realize that 

 the difficulties which we experience in handling this great 

 problem are entirely within ourselves; they are due partly 

 to the incompleteness of our knowledge and partly to the 

 narrowness of the viewpoints which result from our too 

 limited experience. 



In 1933 I made the following statement in my book, 

 Physical Chemistry of Living Tissues and Life Processes as 

 Studied by Artificial Lmitation of Their Single Phases: 



"In order to understand the origin of life, it would be 

 necessary, therefore, to synthesize enzymes" (thos chem- 

 ical activators which initiate chemical changes without 

 being changed or destroyed themselves) "which reproduce 

 themselves in a natural environment and to study their 

 actions. At present synthetic chemistry is not nearly 

 sufficiently developed to venture the synthesis of such 

 compounds, but who can claim that it will never develop 

 that far? If a self-regenerating enzyme of such a kind 

 could be made it would certainly be a carbonic compound. 

 Life, therefore, in spite of all its complexity, seems to be 

 no more than one of the innumerable properties of the 

 compounds of carbon." 



This prophecy was vague enough to justify its insertion in 

 a scientific book, but in the five years which have elapsed a 

 part of it has come true. We have of course not yet learned 

 to synthesize self -regenerating enzymes; this task would 

 take perhaps 500 instead of 5 years; but Dr. W. M. Stanley 

 of The Rockefeller Institute at Princeton, New Jersey has 

 discovered where such substances occur in nature: a virus 



