ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



period when the physical conditions of the earth 

 came to be nearly what they are at present." Of 

 course. But is not this begging the question? We 

 do not know life apart from these conditions; hence 

 we assume that the conditions beget the life. 



What is life anyhow? May we not say that it is a 

 new motion in matter? It does not introduce a new 

 chemistry, or a new physics, but it uses these to 

 new ends. New and unstable compounds arise. 

 Solar energy, says Allen, acting on various carbon 

 and nitrogen compounds, would set up various 

 anabolic and catabolic reactions which resulted in 

 life — life of a very humble and rudimentary form, 

 but life. 



Troland gets life from the enzymes, but how 

 does he get his enzymes? He assumes that at some 

 moment in the earth's history a small amount of a 

 certain autocatalytic enzyme — a self -created en- 

 zyme — suddenly appeared at a definite time and 

 place within the yet warm ocean waters which con- 

 tained in solution various substances reacting very 

 slowly to produce an oily liquid immiscible with 

 water. Troland postulates the auto- or self -catalytic 

 character of the initial enzyme, which is virtually 

 postulating the life-impulse itself. 



Osborn, in his work on the " Origin and Evolu- 

 tion of Life," also virtually starts by assuming that 

 which he sets out to prove. He suggests that the 

 initial step in the origin of life was the coordinating 



204 



