202 THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



morphs — an enantiomorph being a right-handed or 

 a left-handed atom — is, as Pasteur firmly held, the 

 prerogative of life. Only the living organism, with 

 its asymmetric tissues, or the asymmetric products 

 of the living organism, or the living intelligence, 

 with its conception of asymmetry, can produce this 

 result, and only asymmetry can beget asymmetry. 

 And again, he asks, " Is the failure to synchronise 

 single asymmetric compounds without the interven- 

 tion direct or indirect of life due to a permanent 

 inability or merely to a temporary disability which 

 the progress of science may remove ? " Pasteur 

 took the latter view and suggested that the 

 formation of chemical compounds in the magnetic 

 field or under the influence of circularly polarised 

 light would furnish a means of solving the 

 problem ; van't Hoff also thinks the latter 

 method feasible. " As regards magnetism Pasteur's 

 suggestion was undoubtedly based on a miscon- 

 ception ; the magnetic field has not an asymmetric 

 structure, it is merely polar, since the rotation 

 which it produces in the plane of polarisation of a 

 ray of light changes sign in the direction of the 

 field." As regards circularly polarised light, he is 

 forced to confess to having doubts as to whether 

 it can be regarded as an asymmetric phenomenon, 

 the motion of the aether above the axis of the ray 

 being circular, not spiral, but it is only by consider- 

 ing the difference of phase from point to point along 

 the ray that the idea of the spiral can be evolved 

 from it. In fact, are there such forces asymmetric 



