THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



secretion of a protective membrane about the homo- 

 geneous plasma-globule and the separation of the blue- 

 ish-green cortical zone from the colorless central gran- 

 ule. The more important of the further conclusions of 

 Nageli are those which relate to the mode of the primi- 

 tive abiogenesis and the frequent repetition of this 

 physical process. 



Recently Max Kassowitz, in the second volume of his 

 General Biology (1899), has gone fully into the various 

 stages of the process of archigony, as a sequel to his 

 metabolic theory of the building up and decay of plasm, 

 from the point of view of physiological chemistry. He 

 says very truly that the development of living from life- 

 less matter must not be conceived as a sudden leap ; the 

 very complicated chemical unities which now form the 

 basis of life have been slowly and gradually evolved 

 during an incalculably long period by the way of substi- 

 tution for simpler compounds. We may join these views 

 — which generally accord with my earlier deductions — 

 with Pfliiger's cyanogen theory, and so draw up the 

 following theses : 



I. A preliminary stage to archigony is the formation 

 of certain nitrogenous carbon-compounds which may be 

 classed in the cyanic group (cyanic acid, etc.). 2. When 

 the crust of the earth stiffened, water was formed in the 

 fluid condition; under its influence, and in consequence 

 of the great changes in the carbonic-acid laden atmos- 

 phere, a series of complicated nitrogenous carbon- 

 compounds were formed from these simple cyanic 

 compounds, and these first produced albumin (or pro- 

 tein). 3. The molecules of albumin arranged themselves 

 in a certain way, according to their unstable chemical 

 attractions, in larger groups of molecules (pleona or 

 micella). 4. The albumin-micella combined to form 

 larger aggregations, and produced homogeneous plasma- 

 granules (plassonella). 5. As they grew the plassonella 



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