LIFE AND DEATH.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1538, 6 September 1912, Page 5

LIFE AND DEATH.

HISTORIC ADDRESS. SEARCH FOR THE MISSING LINK. BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETINGBy Telegraph—Press Aosociatlon-Copyrteht (Reo. September 5, 10.35 p.m.)' London, September 5. Tho annual meeting of tho British Association for the Advancement of Sciouce was opened to-day at Dundee. Professor Schaefer, of Edinburgh, gave the presidential address. Dealing with the origin of life, he said, setting aside as devoid of scientific foundation supernatural intervention in tho first production of life, .we were compelled to believe it owed its origin to evolution. Life was purely a matter of chemical interaction, and chemists sooner or later would be able to produce a living substance similar to that from which all existing vital organisms had been evolved. Recent research suggested the probability that the divid-ing-line between living and non-living matter was less sharp than had hitherto been supposed. He suggested tho need of careful search for the missing link between living and dead matter. The solution was hopeless, if it was true that life had only been evolved once, but he suggested it was happening still. On the subject of death he disagreed with Metchnikoff, and held that old age and death were a natural and necessary sequence. Even if disease were altogether eliminated, certain fixed cells of" the body must grow old,' and become functionless.

Professor Halliburton said the address was a historic one, and might arouse a controversy similar to tho celebrated addresses of Tyndall and Huxley.

Mr. Caird, a Dundee jute manufacturer, presented the association with .£IO,OOO.

PROBLEMS OF MATTER. ♦ DISTINCTION BETWEEN LIFE AND THE SOUL. (Rec. September 5, 10.15 p.m.) London, September 5. "The Times" states that Professor Schaefer, in 'declaring that the problems of life are essentially problems of matter, guards himself against a crude and obsolete materialism by carefully distinguishing between life and soul.