ORIGIN OF LIFE IX THE OCEANS 127 



of a thousand years or perhaps only of a few centuries. Now we 

 notice obvious shifts in the development of human society within 

 only a few decades. With new forms of organization, old ones were 

 actually retained, but their importance for further progress 

 became insignificantly small. The older forms develop considerably 

 more slowly than do the new ones. With the origin of life, the slow, 

 abiogenetic synthesis of organic substances lost its significance in 

 evolution, as it could not compete with the new, highly organized 

 more rapid processes of metabolism. It is this situation which rules 

 out any possibility of spontaneous generation today. The emer- 

 gence of new organisms is now only possible by the new, extremely 

 ef^cient method for the synthesis of living material from other 

 living matter. 



It may sound paradoxical, but life does not rise de novo just 

 because it has once done so. Let us imagine a tank of water without 

 any living organisms in it but with various organic substances 

 dissolved in the water. If left alone for a considerable time, the 

 synthetic processes outlined above would occur but slowly. 

 Perhaps after many millions or even billions of years this might 

 lead to the origin of life. But if we were to introduce into our tank, 

 organisms already in existence (i.e., bacteria), the course of events 

 would be quite different. In that case the more highly developed 

 biological form of organization would come to the fore and domi- 

 nate. Then the transformation of inert materials to living matter 

 would not follow the slower processes, but rather would proceed 

 in the new way through the metabolic conversion of organic 

 substances in the solution into living protoplasm with tremendous 

 rapidity. Therefore the primitive (abiogenetic) origin of life would 

 simply not have time to take place and thus it would not occur 

 at all. 



Certainly, if as a result of some catastrophe as a consequence of 

 the atomic madness of mankind, life were to disappear on the 

 earth, the curve presented in Fig. 1 would fall sharply to its base. 

 Then it might be expected to turn upward once more, although in 

 perhaps a somewhat different way. Let us hope, however, that 

 this will not happen and that the curve of progress of mankind 

 will continue to rise. 



