68 life's beginning on the earth 



was believed that they were generated from the soil. Care- 

 lessly performed experiments added to the confusion. Nu- 

 trient media, like gelatin, were seen to cover themselves 

 with rapidly developing germs: the fallacious conclusion 

 was drawn that the gelatin was the source of the bacteria. 

 The generally accepted opinion was, therefore, that life 

 arises readily under a variety of conditions. But in 1860 

 and the following years, Louis Pasteur (1823-95), in a re- 

 nowned series of experiments, definitely demonstrated the 

 fallacy of these conclusions. He showed that the best- 

 nutrient medium fails to develop any growth, if it is care- 

 fully heated (so as to destroy all germs in it) and protected 

 against contamination with new germs after the heating. 

 From these experiments some have drawn the sweeping- 

 conclusion that life can never arise from inanimate matter. 

 Thus general opinion swung to the opposite extreme. 



It is known that at one time the earth was a red hot mass, 

 incapable of supporting life in any form. Some time, some 

 how, life must have sprung from the inanimate matter left 

 after this fiery mass had cooled down. The desire to deny 

 this unavoidable conclusion is one of the queerest outcomes 

 of modern scientific specialization. In a series of experi- 

 ments continued over a few years, a scientist sees that in 

 his laboratory life is never generated spontaneously. From 

 this experience he concludes that spontaneous generation 

 can never occur. But a laboratory is not comparable with 

 the earth in its entirety. What was impossible during a 

 few years of experimentation might well have happened 

 some time during the billions of years of the earth's age. 



In view of the great uncertainty prevailing about this 

 problem, it is worth while to recall the varying opinions 

 about another fundamental question, the transformation of 

 one chemical element into another. During the sixteenth, 

 seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, such a transforma- 

 tion, especially that of other metals into gold, was believed 



