86 
On the Origin of Life. By Lionel S. Beale. 
no opinion. Time must be allowed for others to repeat the experi- 
ments ; and, for my own part, I could express no opinion unless I 
had been present and had carefully watched each experiment in 
every stage. As far as I can judge, the reports of recent results 
are not more convincing than were those that were adduced years 
ago, many of which have been discarded and proved to have been 
unreliable from want of care, or from defects in the method of pro- 
cedure. 
If the formation of a bacterium germ, direct from non-living 
matter, be possible, three very remarkable series of changes, as it 
seems to me, will have to be brought about. Whether any means 
will ever be discovered of effecting these changes is surely most 
doubtful. 
First, the atoms of the non-living substances must be separated 
from their combinations. 
Secondly, the atoms will have to be rearranged to constitute 
groups of which the organic matter is made up. 
Thirdly, the groups of atoms must be made to live. 
What facts known, I would ask, render it likely that air, rarefied 
or condensed, or pressure of any degree or of any special kind, or 
any degree of heat, or light, or any conceivable modification of 
physical or chemical conditions, would at the same time account for 
the pulling asunder and joining together of atoms, and for the con- 
ference of new and peculiar powers of growth, of movement, of 
division, and the formation of new substances ? In short, it is not 
easy to conceive, in the imagination, the several steps which result 
in the formation of a living bacterium even from organic matter. 
But the first germ must have sprung direct from matter that never 
had lived nor manifested phenomena in a way like those of life. 
Let us try to imagine a living germ being produced out of non- 
living matter. Atoms of many substances must be conceived as 
separating from one another, and then recombining. Attractions 
and affinities must, in the first place, be overcome, then the forces 
that effected the change must cease to operate ; and these must, 
somehow, be exerted again. By what means the separation of 
atoms is effected cannot be suggested, neither can we conceive how 
the atoms are caused to recombine in a definite way. The supposed 
phenomena would be really more complicated than I have repre- 
sented; for atoms are not related to one another — atom to atom, 
but group to group. How the atoms are grouped, and how the 
groups are related ; how the groups act and react upon one another, 
and new groups are formed ; what makes the atoms combine and 
begin a new course which may continue on and on for ever, — cannot 
be conceived. Upon the whole, the production from non-living 
matter of any living form, however simple, must be regarded as 
most improbable. 
