80 life's beginning on the earth 



m a retort in his laboratory. The stigma of the ridiculous 

 was thus attached to the problem, and it disappeared from 

 the domain of science. The Faustus tale reflects the lack 

 of knowledge which prevailed about five centuries ago or 

 earlier. Little was known at that time about the most 

 elementary chemical processes, nothing about the role which 

 carbon compounds play in life processes. Nothing was 

 known of enzymes or anything like them. Not one or- 

 ganic substance had yet been made artificially. Never- 

 theless, the alchemists talked about the artificial produc- 

 tion in the laboratory — of man ! Nothing less than a complete 

 man, springing from the retort, appeared as an object 

 deserving the effort of research. The idea that man might 

 have evolved from animals was entirely foreign to the 

 scientific thought of 500 years ago. If an alchemist had 

 announced the possibility of making an animal in his retort, 

 he would have been considered as lacking capability, since 

 the prevailing assumption was that small animals were 

 generated directly from the soil every year in the spring 

 time. When we realize the progress made in 500 years, it 

 is not unreasonable to look for a great advance in future 

 centuries. 



Our most important progress, of course, is that we know 

 now how little we know, how far we have to go before we 

 arrive at the creation of artificial life. We are not dreaming 

 about the homunculus. We assume that if any living thing 

 is ever made in the laboratory, it will be something tiny, 

 like the self-reproducing enzymes. But it will certainly 

 take a long time before this goal is reached. 



We should also realize that the self-regenerating enzymes, 

 known so far, the filterable viruses, can develop only in the 

 tissue of a living plant or animal. Self-regenerating en- 

 zymes propagating on non-living matter are as yet un- 

 known, but we may assume that they will be discovered in 

 the future. 



