1 68 THE MECHANISM OF LIFE 



process may be going on — the genesis of life, and the emergence 

 of living beings out of the inanimate mineral world ? " Even 

 now," says Albert Gaudry, "polyps and oceanic animalculae 

 are building up vast coral reefs and rocks. The oxygen and 

 hydrogen which existed once was water, the oxygen and nitrogen 

 which once made air, the carbon, the phosphorus, the silica and 

 the lime which once were solid rock, now form the substance 

 of living beings. The silica is deposited in the skeleton of a 

 sponge or a radiolaria. the shell of a foraminifera or the 

 carapace of a crustacean, or unites with phosphorus to form 

 the bones of a vertebrate. A very tumult of life has succeeded 

 to the primitive silence of inert matter. Life has invaded the 

 earth, and we see on all sides the inanimate mineral kingdom 

 being changed into a living world." 1 



The admission that life may have appeared on the earth 

 under the influence of natural forces and according to physical 

 laws and conditions different from those of the present era 

 throws a vivid light on the study of biogenesis, spontaneous 

 generation, and evolution. The means of research are now 

 indicated, and we have only to study the documents already in 

 our possession in order to know the conditions which obtained 

 when life first appeared on the globe. We must endeavour to 

 reproduce these conditions and to study their effects. 



Since all living beings are formed of the same elements as 

 those of the mineral world, the term "organic'' as applied to 

 combinations can only be used in order to emphasize the 

 complexity of their constitution. It was formerly believed 

 that these organic combinations were the result of life, and 

 could not be reproduced except by living organisms. To da\ 

 many of these organic substances air produced in the 

 laboratory from inorganic materials. In the past history of 

 the globe it is easy to imagine conditions which would 

 facilitate the synthesis of organic substances without the 

 interposition of life. At the temperature of the electric 

 furnace, which was that of the earth al an early period of 

 its evolution, chemical combinations are possible quite other 

 than those obtaining under the present conditions of tempera- 

 ture and pressure. At the higher temperature of the early 



