THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



that the microscope had revealed to him. People 

 shru^ed their shoulders, and hinted at the value 

 of imagination in guiding the pencil. Dr. Bastian 

 bided his time. Finally he resigned his professor- 

 ship at University College Hospital, London, five 

 years before he need, learned the difficult art of 

 photographing under the microscope, and has 

 since taken more than five thousand photo-micro- 

 graphs with his own hands, which bear, directly 

 or indirectly, upon the origin of life. The most 

 striking of all his observations one which he has 

 again and again repeated was embodied by him 

 in a paper which he sent to the Royal Society, of 

 which he is a distinguished fellow. Not only was 

 the paper refused, but a well-known member of 

 the committee, responsible for its refusal, actually 

 refused point-blank to moye three yards in the 

 library of the Royal Society to see Dr. Bastian's 

 specimens. 1 



Now let us consider first Dr. Bastian's criticism 

 of the experiments in which fluids are boiled or 

 filtered. He reasonably regards it as necessary 

 for the production of life that certain chemical 

 compounds be present. If it can be shown that 

 boiling destroys these compounds, then the boiling 

 experiment cannot be held to prove that life can- 

 not originate in non-living fluids. It is known 

 that boiling does alter or "degrade" the chemical 

 compounds in the boiled fluid. It might be thought 



1 Lately the Royal Society has repented itself and accepted 

 the paper. 



