X FOREWORD 



The very fact of there being such a representative gathering of scientists showed 

 not only the great interest taken in the problem under consideration by the 

 Symposium, but also that the previous negative attitude of scientists to the 

 problem has now finally ceased to exist and the question of the origin of life has 

 become a field of intensive experimental work. 



At the basis of the programme for the work of the Symposium, which had 

 previously been discussed and adopted unanimously, lay the principle of the 

 evolutionary origin of life. This principle was shared by all the participants in 

 the conference, a fact which greatly facilitated the extremely friendly and inten- 

 sive work of the Symposium. It was very characteristic of this work that, in the 

 process of discussing the different stages in the evolutionary development of 

 matter in the Symposium, a number of new facts came to light, giving a founda- 

 tion and experimental confirmation to a number of suggestions which had 

 hitherto only been speculative in nature. Of course, although participants in 

 the Symposium were all essentially in agreement about the evolutionary principle 

 in the solution of the problem of the origin of fife, nevertheless, on particular 

 questions there were considerable differences between them which led to very 

 heated and fruitful discussions. 



However, the very nature of the discussions showed how far we have pro- 

 gressed along the path of scientific elucidation of the problem of the origin of 

 life. For instance, even comparatively recently, the opinion was widely held 

 among scientists that, under natural conditions and in inorganic Nature, even 

 the simplest organic substances could not arise primarily. It was held that these 

 substances could only be formed biogenically. In the Symposium it was 

 shown to be completely possible that hydrocarbons and their derivatives could 

 be formed on the surface of the Earth even before the emergence of life. This 

 could have occurred in many different ways and the argument now was only 

 concerned with which of these ways was the dominant one in the process of 

 formation of our planet and in the earliest stages of its existence. 



In just the same way, there was a time when it was considered that the as}Tn- 

 metry of organic materials, which is characteristic of protoplasm, was the exclusive 

 prerogative of living things and it was maintained that it could not arise at any 

 place or time in the inorganic world. 



In the Symposium there were reported many asymmetrical syntheses under 

 the influence of circularly-polarized ultraviolet light, by catalytic reactions 

 occurring on the surface of quartz crystals, spontaneously by slow crystallization 

 from solutions etc. The argument is now not concerned with whether or not 

 the asymmetry of the first organic substances could have arisen abiogenically, 

 but with which of the numerous possible ways was actually used on the surface 

 of our planet, even long before the appearance of living materials on it. 



Similarly, there lay before the Symposium the question of the possible means 

 of abiogenic formation of amino acids, porphyrins, protein-Uke polymers, poly- 

 nucleotides and other high-molecular organic compounds. 



The large amount of experimental material put before the Symposium was a 

 clear demonstration of the complete possibility of the primary formation of these 

 compounds on the surface of the Earth even before life was present on it. An 



