544 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION I. 
hither by you, may worship at the shrine of my matchless beauty.’ By all 
the master discoveries in all the paths of science, Nature is ever teaching us this 
great doctrine to which we have closed our ears so long. She tells us the 
creation of the world is not finished, the creation of the world is going on, 
and I am calling upon you to take a part in this creation. Never mind that you 
cannot see the whole, love that you see, work at it, and be thankful that I have 
given you a part to play with so much pleasure in it, and so doing you will 
rise to the highest ideal. : 
This is religion with thirst for knowledge as its central spring; does it differ 
much from those aspirations which have made men of all nations worship 
throughout all the ages? Anthropology teaches us that the religious system 
of a race of men gives a key to their advancement in civilisation. If this be so, 
growth in natural knowledge must elevate our highest conceptions, furnish purer 
ideals, and give us more of that real religion that is to be found running so 
strongly in the minds of great individuals such as Isaac Newton, Michael 
Faraday, Louis Pasteur, Auguste Comte. A great man may be strongly 
opposed to the orthodox creeds of his day, he may even sneer at them, he 
may be burnt at the stake by their votaries, and yet be a man of strong religious 
feelings and emotions which have furnished the unseen motive power, perhaps 
unsuspected even by himself, that leads to a whole life of scientific heroism 
and enthusiasm. 
The practical lesson for us to learn from all this is that we must consider 
research as sacred and leave it untrammelled by fetters of utilitarianism. The 
researcher in functional biology, for example, must be left free to pursue 
investigations as inspiration leads him on any living structure from a unicellular 
plant to a man, and must not be expected to devise a cure for tuberculosis or 
cancer. In his research he must think of something higher even than saving 
life or promoting health, or he is likely to prove a failure at the lower level also. 
As an example of the wrong attitude of mind towards science, there may 
be taken the point of view of those utilitarians who complain of the amount 
of time and discussion at present being given to the problem of the origin of 
life. These wiseacres with limitations to their brains say ‘that is an insoluble 
problem, we shall never get to the bottom of it, let us simply assume, since it is 
here, that life did originate somehow, and, taking this as an axiom, proceed 
to some practical experimental problem; the origination of life does not lend 
itself to experimental inquiry.’ 
Now it is, strange to say, just those problems that appear most insoluble 
upon which the inquiring type of mind loves to linger and spend its energies, 
and, although the problems never may be solved, the misty solitudes to which 
they lead are glorious and the fitful gleams of half-sunshine that come through 
are more kindling to the senses of such men, than the brightest sunshine on the 
barest of hills. It is here, and in such quests, that the biggest of human 
discoveries are made, and not all of them are in natural science alone. 
The search after the mystery and origin of life had profound influence in 
raising man from a savage to a civilised human being, and is found as an 
integral part in all religions above a certain level of savagery. Much of the 
system of morals and ethics of civilised nations is unconsciously grouped round 
this problem, and we owe the existence of that social conscience which 
makes each of us our race’s keeper to our interest in the nature of life, and 
our ties with other lives. Leave such a problem alone and attend to routine 
researches! Why, the human intellect cannot do it, such problems compel 
attention! What, it may be asked, was it that started all this routine research 
in biology, in favour of which we are asked to abandon the search after the 
origin of life? The routine research would not exist, but for a discovery made 
in investigating whether life originated in a certain alleged way. 
If the whole science of bacteriology emerged from a proof that a certain alley 
did not lead to the origin of life, how much more glorious may that knowledge 
become that finally leads us to this goal, or even one step onward in our true 
path towards it. The search after the origin of life is an experimental inquiry, 
it leads straight to research, that is all the physicist or chemist demands of a 
theory, it should be enough for the biologist. We who search for this are not 
occultists whatever may be said of those who oppose. 
