170 THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



here they then would begin to develop and start the 

 formation of organisms. Eichter and Preyer regarded 

 organic life, strictly speaking, as never having origin- 

 ated, but as having existed from all eternity, like the 

 elements of matter. The hypothesis put forward here 

 is that the substance which forms the ultimate nucleus 

 in cellular life possesses some such properties and 

 may in a similar manner have existed for a very 

 great period like the elements. Recent work shows 

 that even these are the results of more or less stable 

 types that have survived in the course of the evolu- 

 tion or formation of matter. So that the problem of 

 the origin of life resolves itself into the problem 

 of the origin of matter, and in particular of the origin 

 of unstable matter, like the radio-active elements. 

 Formation of a cell is thus the result of the formation 

 of a particular type of growth and resembles the 

 growth of a plant from its seed. As the seed is the 

 nucleus on a larger scale by which the elements 

 carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur, 

 phosphorus and iron, are assimilated from the soil, 

 so the element bio-carbon, acting on the soil in 

 certain circumstances which we do not at present 

 know, the conditions being probably most compli- 

 cated, may also in the remote past have given rise 

 to such cellular structures as we see to-day, and 

 which we see produced artificially in the laboratory 

 in such forms as have been described, notably in 

 the case of radio-organic bodies. 



Just as the lighter elements appear, in view of 



