The Origin of Life 33 



mysticism connected with this and other phenomena 

 of adaptation would disappear if we could be certain 

 that all cells are really immortal and that the fact which 

 demands an explanation is not the continued activity 

 but the cessation of activity in death. Thus we see 

 that the idea of the immortality of the body cell if it 

 can be generalized may be destined to become one of 

 the main supports for a complete physico-chemical 

 analysis of life phenomena since it makes the durability 

 of organisms intelligible. 



5. This generalized idea of the immortality of some 

 or possibly most or all somatic cells has a bearing upon 

 the problem of the origin of life on our planet. The 

 experiments of Spallanzani, Schwann, Schroeder, Pas- 

 teur, Tyndall, and all those who have worked with pure 

 cultures of micro-organisms, have proved that no spon- 

 taneous generation of Hving from non-living matter 

 can be demonstrated; and the statements to the con- 

 trary were due to experimental errors inasmuch as the 

 new organisms formed were the offspring of others 

 which had entered into the culture medium by mistake. 



In the last chapter of that most fascinating book 

 Worlds in the Making,^ Arrhenius discusses the possi- 

 biHty of life being eternal and of living germs of very 

 small dimensions — e. g., the spores of micro-organisms — 

 being carried through space from one planet to another 



» Arrhenius, S., Worlds in the Making, London and New York, 1908, 

 p. 212. 



3 



