INTRODUCTION 19 



remains no room for logic and common sense, but to 

 infer the production of something new which had not 

 previously existed therein. 



The objection has also been raised that as the 

 media in which these products have been developed 

 were once living that consequently the origin of life 

 remains as unsolved as it ever was before. This 

 piece of criticism is quite sound. It must, however, be 

 remembered that the culture media previous to the 

 experiment, exhibited none of the properties of life, 

 and the transformation, if it is a transformation, thus 

 appears to have taken place by the reversal of the 

 process of that which once was living and had become 

 lifeless into a living form again, however simplified 

 that living form may be. 



The last traces of life as we know it did not and 

 could not possibly have existed in such tubes. So 

 that whatever way we view the matter the conclusion 

 that some more elementary form of life than bacteria 

 does exist is the least startling result that can be 

 inferred from all these facts. 



In that gradation we ascend the scale of being 

 from the atom, through many unstable molecular 

 forms, mineral, vegetable and animal, even unto Man, 

 and in self conscious man himself reflect upon the 

 mind-stuff of which he and all Nature are ultimately 

 composed. 



The notion that the material atom is a hard and 

 tough thing with no property but that of exerting 

 attractive or repulsive force upon its equally senseless 



c 2 



