SOME UNSOLVED SCIENTIFIC PROBLEMS 



involved was unique, acting then and then only by that 

 assumption he removes the question of the origin of life 

 utterly from the domain of science exactly as the as- 

 sumption of an initial push would remove the question 

 of the origin of worlds from the domain of science. But 

 the science of to-day most emphatically denlurs to any 

 such assumption. Every scientist with a wide grasp of 

 facts, who can think clearly and without prejudice over 

 the field of what is known of cosmic evolution, must be 

 driven to believe that the alleged wide gap between 

 vital and non-vital matter is largely a figment of prej- 

 udiced human understanding. In the broader view there 

 seem no gaps in the scheme of cosmic evolution no 

 break in the incessant reciprocity of atomic actions, 

 whether those atoms be floating as a "fire mist" out in 

 one part of space, or aggregated into the brain of a man 

 in another part. And it seems well within the range of 

 scientific expectation that the laboratory worker of the 

 future will learn how so to duplicate telluric conditions 

 that the play of universal forces will build living matter 

 out of the inorganic in the laboratory, as they have done, 

 and perhaps still are doing, in the terrestrial oceans. 



To the timid reasoner that assumption of possibilities 

 may seem startling. But assuredly it is no more so than 

 seemed, a century ago, the assumption that man has 

 evolved, through the agency of "natural laws" only, 

 from the lowest organism. Yet the timidity of that 

 elder day has been obliged by the progress of our cen- 

 tury to adapt its conceptions to that assured sequence 

 of events. And some day, in all probability, the timid- 

 ity of to-day will be obliged to take that final logical 

 step which to-day's knowledge foreshadows as a future 

 if not a present necessity. 



453 



