CHAPTER III 



LIFE AND LIVING THINGS 



"Just as the search for the philosopher's stone that was to transmute 

 the baser metals into gold, led through alchemy to the foundations of 

 modern chemistry, and to a richer reward than the long-sought stone, 

 and as the vain pursuit of the elusive elixir vitce, that was to renew youth 

 and vigour and give unending life at the prime, merged into the begin- 

 nings of scientific medicine; so the inquiry into spontaneous generation, 

 or the origin of life, opened up the whole of our modern knowledge of the 

 causation of disease through the discoveries of Pasteur, and onward 

 beyond that laid the broad foundations for the wonderful developments 

 of modern surgery which arose from the noble lif ework of Lister. Millions 

 of lives have been saved, and untold misery and suffering averted, 

 by practical discoveries which arose from apparently purely philosoph- 

 ical enquiries dealing with theories which might have been dismissed as 

 chimerical." Moore. 



What is life? No one knows! Definitions have been 

 formulated which will enable us to separate living from 

 non-living things, but when it comes to knowing why a 

 living thing is alive we have little that is satisfying from a 

 scientific point of view. Things are alive because they 

 have life. It may seem idle to pursue a discussion which 

 in the end will lead us back to where we started, but we 

 may, nevertheless, look with profit into the facts and 

 theories which relate to living things. Because we cannot 

 answer a question is no reason why we should not try. 

 Maybe, sometime, by trying, the answer will be found. 



ORIGIN OF LIFE 



In the past many curious notions have been held in regard 

 to the origin of individual animals. It was at one time 

 commonly believed that small aquatic animals generated 

 from mud, and that decaying meat was transformed into 



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