^ The Origin of Life 39 



not occur in the solutions used by him does not prove 

 that a synthesis of living from dead matter is impossible 

 under any conditions. It is at least not inconceivable 

 that in an earlier period of the earth's history radio- 

 activity, electrical discharges, and possibly also the 

 action of volcanoes might have furnished the combina- 

 tion of circumstances under which living matter might 

 have been formed. The staggering difficulties in 

 imagining such a possibility are not merely on the 

 chemical side — e. g., the production of proteins from 

 CO 2 and N — but also on the physical side if the neces- 

 sity of a definite cell structure is considered. We shall 

 see in the sixth chapter that without a structure in the 

 egg to begin with, no formation of a complicated organ- 

 ism is imaginable; and while a bacterium may have a 

 simple structure, such a structure as it possesses is as 

 necessary for its existence as are its enzymes. 



Attempts have repeatedly been made to imitate the 

 structures in the cell and of living organisms by colloidal 

 precipitates. It is needless to point out that such 

 precipitates are of importance only for the study of the 

 origin of structures in the living, but that they are not 

 otherwise an imitation of the living since they are 

 lacking the characteristic synthetic chemical processes. 



