122 The Bible of Nature 



thesis of the simplest optically active compound 

 from inorganic materials is absolutely incon- 

 ceivable." 



Not content, however, with indicating the diffi- 

 culty which the believer in abiogenesis has here 

 to face, Professor Japp went on to say — perhaps, 

 in so doing, leaving the rigidly scientific position: 

 "I see no escape from the conclusion that, at the 

 moment when life first arose, a directive force came 

 into play — a force of precisely the same character 

 as that which enables the intelligent operator, by 

 the exercise of his will, to select out one crystallized 

 enantiomorph and reject its asymmetric opposite." 

 After prolonged discussion, and in view of various 

 suggestions of possible origins, he wrote : " Although 

 I no longer venture to speak of the inconceivability 

 of any mechanical explanation of the production 

 of single optically active compounds asymmetric al- 

 ways in the same sense, I am as convinced as ever 

 of the enormous improbability of any such produc- 

 tion under chance conditions." 



Apart, then, from the fact that the synthesis of 

 proteids seems still far off, apart also from the 

 fact that there is a great gap between a drop of 

 proteid and the simplest organism, we have per- 

 haps said enough to show that the hypothesis of 

 abiogenesis is not to be held with an easy mind, at- 

 tracted as we may be to it by the general evolu- 

 tionist argument. 



