THE ORIGIN OF LIFE: A CHEMIST'S FANTASY. 



By H. E. Armstrong. 



"Behold, the beginning of philosophy is the observation of how men contradict 

 each other and the search whence cometh this contradiction and the censure and 

 mistrust of bare opinion. And it is an inquiry into that which seems, whether it 

 rightly seems; and the discovery of a certain rule, even as we have found a balance 

 for weights and a plumb-line for straight and crooked. This is the beginning of 

 philosophy." — Epictetus. 



•The presidential address delivered recently to the British Associa- 

 tion at Dundee by Prof. Schafer and the subsequent independent 

 discussion, at a joint sittmg of the ])hysiologicul and zoological 

 sections of the Association, of the subject considered in the president's 

 discourse will at least have served as a corrective to the wave of 

 vitalism that has passed over society of late years, owing to the 

 pervasive eloquence of Bergson and other writers who have elected 

 to discuss the problems of life, mamly from the metaphysical and 

 psychological pouits of view, with little reference to the knowledge 

 gained by experimental uiquuy. 



As Prof. Schafer himself remarked, the problem of the origm of life 

 is at root a chemical problem. It is somewhat surprisuig, therefore, 

 that the chemists were not invited to joui in the del)ate at Dundee. 

 Judging from tlic remarks that fell from several of the speakers, 

 their sobering presence was by no means unnecessary. It is clear 

 that, so long as biologists are satisfied with the modicum of chemistry 

 which is now held to serve their purpose, they will never be able to 

 escape from the region of vague surmise. 



On the Tuesday Prof. Macallum fancifully pictured the earth as at 

 one time "a gigantic laboratory where there had been a })lay of tre- 

 mendous forces, notably electricity, which might have produced 

 millions of tunes organisms that survived but a few hours, but m 

 which also, by a favorable conjunction of those forces, what we now 

 call life might have come into existence." I thmk I heard him then 

 refer to the great stores of oil we now ])ossess and imply that they 



> Reprinted by permission from Science Progress in the Twentieth Century, No. 26, October, 1912. Lon- 

 don, pp. 312-329. 



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