ORIGIN OF LIFE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1541, 10 September 1912, Page 7

ORIGIN OF LIFE.

PROFESSOR SCHAEFER'S . VIEWS. NOTHING NEW. By Telesraph—Presa Association—Copyright London, September 8. Sir E. Ray Lankester, referring to the remarks of Professor A. E. Schacfer, in hie presidential address on the origin of life to the British Association, for tho Advancement of Science, says there is nothing new in Professot Schaefer's vision, which is thirty or forty years old, and which is all mentioned ia Professor Huxley's and his (Sir Eay Lankester'e) writings. Dr. Alfred Wallace is good-humourodly scornful regarding Professor Schaefer's arguments, whichf lie says, are those of Haeckel, nnd contain nothing that can bo called new. ■ ' THE PRESIDENT-ELECT. London, September 8. ■ Sir William Whilo, ttio eminent naval architect, is tho president-elect of tho iiritish Association. ' The next meeting of the association will bo held at Birmingham.

Sir E. Ray Lankester is a leading British scientist, and was president of the British Association in 1896. He is president and founder of the Marine Biological Association, and editor of the "Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science." Dr. Alfred Russel Wallfteo is one of the most famous of living naturalists whose name will go down in history as tho man who formulated the evolution, hypothesis simultaneously with Darwin. Professor Ernst Haeckel is a distinguished German, scientist, who wae oue of the earliest champions of Darwin in Germany. He is of opinion that, tho chemicophysical properties of carbon in its complex albuminoid compounds are- the sole nnd the mechanical cause of the specific phenomena of movement which distinguish organic from inorganic substances, and tho first development of living protoplasm, as seen in the Monera, 1, arises from such nitrogenous carbon-compounds by a process of spontaneous generation. This theory has hot received anything like general acceptance.