THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 89 



to its present variety, or it originated on the earth itself from 

 inorganic matter by spontaneous generation (Urzengung). 



But even here we proceed from the assumption that life 

 originated. Is there no other possibility? Even if we assume 

 that the earth was once a mass of molten matter, are we in that 

 case compelled to assume an origin of organisms ? Is it not 

 possible that even in the red heat of the revolving nebular masses 

 there was already life, and that therefore our questions are not 

 justified ? 



However improbable this theory may sound, it has neverthe- 

 less found powerful advocates. No less a man than the eminent 

 physiologist Preyer, an original and acute thinker, strongly 

 advocated this idea in his book, " Die Hypothesen iiber den 

 Ursprung des Lebens," published in 1880, nor did he hesitate 

 to accept the last consequences of his theory. Basing his argu- 

 ments on Harvey's law that every living organism descends 

 from another living organism, Preyer thinks it arbitrary and 

 inconsistent to assume that this w T as ever otherwise. The human 

 eye has never seen an organism which was not descended from 

 another organism, but observation and experiment show how 

 dead inorganic matter is daily and hourly formed of living matter. 

 Why should we not assume that it was always so ? Why 

 should we not be more justified in concluding that living sub- 

 stance was first, and that inorganic elements were later excreted 

 from it ? " It is only because of our narrow conception of life," 

 says Preyer, " that this idea appears to us strange and fantastic. 

 But if we free ourselves from the entirely arbitrary thought, 

 rendered probable by not a single fact, that protoplasm always 

 possessed the nature which it does now, and give up the ancient 

 prejudice, due only to laziness in thinking, that in the beginning 

 there was only the inorganic, we shall not hesitate to take 

 another step forward, drop the theory of abiogenesis, and acknow- 

 ledge that there is no beginning of life. Omne vivum e vivo." 



To Preyer's imagination the entire incandescent mass of the 

 solar system appears as one gigantic organism. Its life is the 

 motion of its matter. Out of it came our earth. This, too, 

 consisted at first only of animated matter, and only later, as the 

 cooling process proceeds, the substances, which can no longer 

 remain at the molten stage, are deposited as a solid nucleus. 



