1 8 THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



no reason to suppose, as will be seen, that solubility is 

 not one of these properties. To assume the contrary 

 would be to beg the question at issue. 



The antiseptic property of radium has been 

 supposed to be sufficient to prevent the appearance of 

 life in substances exposed to its influence. Here 

 again it may only be destructive of comparatively 

 higher forms of life such as bacteria. We do not 

 know upon what function of the microbe the injurious 

 action of radium actually depends. Thus the absence 

 of this function or the presence of some counteracting 

 function may be sufl&eient to permit the survival of a 

 living organism exposed to radio-activity. What is 

 more, the fact that radium can produce an organism 

 in organic bodies may in itself be sufl&cient to 

 account for its destructive influence upon bacteria 

 generally, such organisms as radiobes being sufficient 

 to destroy all other living or apparently living things, 

 by waging war, so to speak, upon the others ; and 

 proving themselves the fittest to survive. 



Much stress has been laid upon the possibility of 

 imperfect sterilisation in these experiments. But 

 such criticism can only be the outcome of confusion of 

 thought. If it is admitted that these forms we have 

 obtained are soluble in warm water and if it is further 

 admitted, as it must be, that they are not bacteria, 

 how then can they have been the products of imperfect 

 sterilisation? They surely have a less chance of 

 surviving that process than bacteria themselves. 

 And if they are totally difi"erent from such bacteria as 

 we observed when sterilisation is incomplete, there 



