464 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



forces. To understand them is, they admit freely, beyond their ken. 

 Thereby, even if their own problem were solved, a purely materialistic 

 view would hardly be appreciably advanced. 



But to return. Life, like electricity, can not be defined, but, like it, 

 manifests itself in certain ways. Movement, metabolism, growth and 

 reproduction are held to be characteristic properties of life by a large 

 class of physiologists ; but the insurgent group, with Wohler's artificial 

 production of urea — wherein he overthrew the idea that organic sub- 

 stances possess a "vital" force — as its foundation stone, is bent upon 

 showing us that there is no such barrier between the animate and the 

 inanimate. Is it movement that you are considering? Have we not 

 that in organic mixtures, in oil drops, in globules of mercury? And 

 are these not all explicable by changes in surface tension? Is it meta- 

 bolism — the taking in of food and the giving out of waste products ? If 

 «o, what of osmotic conditions, where solutions are separated by semi- 

 permeable membranes and where there is an interchange of substance? 

 Is it growth and reproduction ? If so, consider the growth and multi- 

 plication of crystals. 



It is this argument by analogy that has led the ultra-scientific school 

 to its present theory with regard to the origin of life. Eightly brushing 

 aside the meteoric theories of Kelvin, Helmholtz and Arrhenius as irrele- 

 vant in so far as origin goes — for in their attempt to explain the first 

 sign of life on this planet they presuppose the existence of the germ else- 

 where — Schafer boldly upholds the hypothesis that life originated as a 

 result of the gradual evolution of inanimate material. In process of 

 time the simple substance became more and more complex and ultimately 

 emerged as the living germ — the nitrogenous colloid. 



But Schafer goes a step further. Why are we to suppose that this 

 happened but once, as all theories with regard to origin have thus far 

 assumed? Why are we to suppose that at one time in the dim past a 

 series of fortunate accidents made life possible? Is it not more logical 

 to assume that these evolutionary processes are going on to-day and will 

 continue to do so ? 2 



Though even Huxley was of the opinion that at one time there was 

 "an evolution of living protoplasm from not living matter," the idea 

 that we should not relegate the process to some remote period in the 

 past is a comparatively new one, and has not by any means received the 

 approval of many otherwise loyal chemico-physiologists. These argue 

 with no small show of reason, that continuous life production would 

 imply similar terrestrial conditions throughout the ages; and this we 

 know not to be the case. 3 



2 E. A. Schafer, ' ' Life : Its Nature, Origin and Maintenance, ' ' Smithsonian 

 Report, Publication 2213. 



3 Giving fancy full reign, Macallum pictures for us " a gigantic laboratory 

 where there had been a play of tremendous forces, notably electricity, which 



