502 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



as making their appearance in these experimental flasks.^ Nor 

 should we expect the spontaneous generation of living substance of 

 any kind to occur in a fluid the organic constituents of which have 

 been so altered by heat that they can retain no sort of chemical resem- 

 blance to tho organic constituents of living matter. If the formation 

 of life, of living substance, is possible at the present day — and for 

 my own part I see no reason to doubt it — a boiled infusion of organic 

 matter, and still less of inorganic matter, is the last place in which 

 to look for it. Our mistrust of such evidence as has yet been brought 

 forward need not, however, preclude us from admitting the possibility 

 of the formation of living from nonliving substance.^ 



LIFE A PRODUCT OF EVOLUTION. 



Setting aside, as devoid of scientific foundation, the idea of imme- 

 diate supernatural intervention in the first production of Hfe, we are 

 not only justified in beUeving, but compelled to believe, that living 

 matter must have owed its origin to causes similar in character to 

 those which have been instrumental in producing all other forms of 

 matter in the universe; in other words, to a process of gradual evolu- 

 tion.^ But it has been customary of late amongst biologists to shelve 

 the investigation of the mode of origin of Ufe by evolution from nonhv- 

 ing matter by relegating its solution to some former condition of the 

 earth's histoiy, when, it is assumed, opportunities were accidentally 

 favorable for the passage of inanimate matter into animate; such 

 opportunities, it is also assumed, having never since recurred and 

 being nev{>,r hkoly to recur.'* 



1 It is fair to point out that Dr. Bastian suggests that the format ion of ultra microscopic living particles 

 may precede the appearance of the mieroscopic organisms which he describes. — The Origin of Life, 1911, 

 p. 65. 



' The present position of the subject is succinctly stated by Dr. Chalmers Mitchell in his article on " Abio- 

 geucsLs" in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Dr. Mitchell adds: "It may be that in the progress of science 

 it may yet be possible to construct living protoplasm from nonliving material. The refutation of abiogene- 

 sis has no further bearing on this possibility than to make it probable that if protoplasm ultimately be 

 formed in the laboratory, it will be by a series of steps, the earlier steps being the formation of some sub- 

 stance or substances now unknown which are not protoplasm. Such intermediate stages may have 

 existed in the past." And Huxley in his presidential address at Liverpool in 1S70 says: "But though I 

 can not express this conviction (i. e., of the impossibility of the occurrence of abiogenesLs, as exemplified 

 by the appearance of organisms in hemietically sealed and sterilized flasks) too strongly, I must carefully 

 guard myself against the supposition that I intend to suggest that no such thing as abiogenesis ever has 

 taken place in the past or ever will take place in the future. With organic chemistry, molecular physics, 

 and physiology yet in their infancy and every day making prodigious strides, I think it would be the height 

 of presmnption lor any man to say that the conditions under which matter assumes the properties we call 

 'vital' may not some day be arliflcially brought together." 



3 The argimients in favor of this proposition have been arrayed by Meldola in his Herbert Spencer I^ecture, 

 1910, pp. l(>-24. Meldola leaves the question open whether such evolution has occurred only in past years 

 or is also taking place now. lie concludes that whereas certain carbon compounds liave survived by reason 

 of possessing extreme stability, others— the precursors of living matter— survived owing to the possession 

 of extreme lability and adaptability to variable conditions of environment. A smiilar suggestion was 

 previously made l)y Lockyer, Inorganic Evolution, 1900, pp. I(i9, 170. 



* T. U. luxley, presidential address, 1870; A. B. Macallum, " On the Origin of Lile on the Globe," in 

 Trans. Canadian Institute, vol. 8. 



