XV 



THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



The miracle of the origin of hfe — Creation of species: Moses and 

 Agassiz — Creation of the first cells: Wigand and Reinke — 

 Agnostic position : resignation — Eternity hypothesis (dual- 

 istic, Helmholtz; monistic, Preyer) — Archigony hypothesis 

 (autogony hypothesis, Haeckel, Nageli; cyanic hypothesis, 

 Pfliiger, Verworn) — Spontaneous generation — Saprobiosis 

 or necrobiosis — Experiments in spontaneous generation — 

 Pasteur — Stages of archigony — Observation of archigony — 

 Synthesis of plasma — Value of the unsuccessful experi- 

 ments to produce plasm artificially — The logic of modern 

 experimental biology. 



THE question of the origin of life is one of the most 

 important and interesting, but one of the most dif- 

 ficult and complicated, problems with which the mind 

 of man has been occupied for thousands of years. There 

 are few other questions (such as the freedom of the will or 

 personal immortality) on which such different and con- 

 tradictory views have been expressed, and few that 

 remain so far from being closed at the present day. 

 There are, moreover, few problems on which the opinions 

 of even distinguished thinkers diverge so much, and have 

 degenerated so much into fantastic hypotheses. This is 

 partly due to the extreme difficulty of giving a strictly 

 scientific solution of the problem and partly to the con- 

 fusion of ideas which is so great in this controversy, the 

 lack of clear rational insight, and the powerful authority 

 of the prevailing religious faith and other venerable 

 dogmas. 



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