12 



THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF LIFE 



We may imagine that the energy which Hes in the Hfe-germ 

 of heredity is very great per unit of mass of the matter which 

 contains it, but that the Kfe-germ energy, unhke that of radium, 

 is in process of accumulation, construction, conservation, rather 

 than of dissipation and destruction. 



Following the time (1620) when Francis Bacon divined that 

 heat consists of a kind of motion or brisk agitation of the par- 

 ticles of matter, it has step by step been demonstrated that 

 the energy of heat, of light, of electricity, the electric energy 

 of chemical configurations, the energy of gravitation, are all 

 utilized in living as well as in lifeless substances. Moreover, 

 as remarked above (p. 5), no form of energy has thus far 

 been discovered in living substances which is peculiar to them 

 and not derived from the inorganic world. In a broad sense 

 all these manifestations of energy are subject to Newton's dy- 

 namical laws^ which were formulated in connection with the 

 motions of the heavenly bodies, but are found to apply equally 

 to all motions great or little. 



These three fundamental laws are as follows:- 



Corpus omne perseverare in statu 

 suo quiescendi vel movendi uni- 

 formiter in directum, nisi quatenus 

 illud a viribus impressis cogitur 

 statum suum mutare. 



Every body perseveres in its 

 state of rest, or of uniform motion 

 in a right line, unless it is compelled 

 to change that state by forces im- 

 pressed thereon. 



^ I am indebted to my colleague M. I. Pupin for valuable suggestions in formulating 

 the physical aspect of the principles of action and reaction. He interprets Newton's 

 third law of motion as the foundation not only of modern dynamics in the Newtonian 

 sense but in the most general sense, including biological phenomena. With regard to the 

 first law of thermodynamics, it is a particular form of the principle of conservation of en- 

 ergy as applied to heat energy; Helmholtz, who first stated the principle of conservation 

 of energy, derived it from Newtonian dynamics. The second law of thermodynamics 

 started from a new principle, that of Carnot, which apparently had no direct connection 

 with Newton's third law of motion; this second law, however, in its most general form 

 cannot be fully interpreted except by statistical dynamics, which are a modern offshoot 

 of Newtonian dynamics. 



-Newton's three laws of motion, first published in Newton's Principia in 1687. 



