The Mechanistic Conception of Life 5 



which accelerate the oxidations at body temperature suffi- 

 ciently to allow the maintenance of life are the so-called 

 ferments of oxidation. 



The work of Lavoisier and Laplace not only marks the 

 beginning of scientific biology, it also touches the core of the 

 problem of life; for it seems that oxidations form a part, if 

 not the basis, of all life phenomena in higher organisms. 



III. the ''riddle of life" 



By the ''riddle of life" not everybody will understand the 

 same thing. We all, however, desire to know how life 

 originates and what death is, since our ethics must be 

 influenced to a large extent through the answer to this ques- 

 tion. We are not yet able to give an answer to the question 

 as to how life originated on the earth. We know that every 

 living being is able to transform food-stuffs into living matter; 

 and we also know that not only the compounds which are 

 formed in the animal body can be produced artificially, but 

 that chemical reactions which take place in living organisms 

 can also be repeated at the same rate and temperature in 

 the laboratory. The gap in our knowledge which we feel 

 most keenly is the fact that the chemical character of the 

 catalyzers (the enzymes or ferments) is still unknown. 

 Nothing indicates, however, at present that the artificial 

 production of living matter is beyond the possibilities of 

 science. 



This view does not stand in opposition to the idea of 

 Arrhenius that germs of sufficiently small dimensions are 

 driven by radiation-pressure through space; and that these 

 germs, if they fall upon new cosmic bodies possessing water, 

 salts, and oxygen, and the proper temperature, give rise to a 

 new evolution of organisms. Biology will certainly retain 

 this idea, but I believe that we must also follow out the 

 other problem: namely, we must either succeed in producing 



