THE ORIGIN OF LIFE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1618, 9 December 1912, Page 4

THE ORIGIN OF LIFE.

A REPLY TO PROFESSOR SCHAEFER. BY DR. A. It. WALLACE. Alfred Russel Wallace, 0.M., LL.D., D.C.L., E.R.S., the Grand Old Man of British. Science, was born ninety years ago in Monmouthshire of Scottish ancestry. Pre-eminently a self-made man and a supremely original mind. Began his career as a surveyor and architect. Left business to travel 'nnd explore tho outlying regions of the globe—tho Amazon and tho Malay. Archipelago. Conceived and constructed tho theory of Evolution sixty years ago, contemporaneously with, but independently of, Darwin, whose life-long friend he was. However great as au explorer of nature, he is even 'greater as a personal force. Is of the breed of giants. The most perfect living exemplar of the scientific thinker who devotes his life to , the disinterested pursuit of truth' and for', the good of humanity. Dr. Wallace writes as follows in "Everyman" in Teply to Professor Schaofer's Bri. fish Association address, on the origin of, life':—

The great body of intelligent, but nonscientific, readers has been greatly interested, and many of them even mentally distressed, at what seemed to them to be an authoritative declaration by one of the highest expounders of the science of today in favour of the materialistic as opposed to the spiritualistic nature of life, including that of man with all its marvel-' lous powers and possibilities. The position of president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science is justly considered to be one of the high- | est, if not the very highest, honour that can be attained by a student of science! in this country, sjneo it is given him by a select body of his compeers, who by their choice declare him to be in the first rank .for ability and erudition in his own deapartment. '..■''.' When, therefore. Dr. E. A. Schaefer, who has beeii Professor of Physiology in two of our most scientific universities, devoted tho whole of his presidential address, to a very, lengthy and elaborate discussion as to "the nature, origin, and maintenance of life," it was to be expected that the vast subject would be set before the public with a full summary of the facts, accompanied by a logical statement of the conclusions arrived at by one or other of the opposing schools of thought on this intensely interesting problem. •

Life and Soul. Very early in his address Dr. Schaefer expresses his own views very clearly, but in a manner .which seems to me to 6lur over essential points and actually to beg the whole question at issue. This lie does by deliberately declaring his inability, to give a definition of life, and then proceeds to the statement that "life is not identical with soul," and that whatever he says regarding "life'' must not be taken to apply to the conception, to which tha word "soul" is attached. And that is allhe-gives, us as to what, ho means by either 'life" or "soul." . . . Having tliU6 ignored the soul, as having nothing to do with life from a scientific, standpoint, he goes on to state his own conclusions in the following words: "The problems, of life are essentially problems of matter; we cannot conceive of life, in the scientific sense of the word, as existing apart from matter. The phenomena of life are investigated, and can only' bo investigated, by the same methods as all other phenomena- of matter, and the general results of such investigations tend'to show, that living beings are governed by laws identical with those which govern inanimate matter. The more we study the phenomena of life, the moro we become convinced of the. truth of- this statement, and the less we are disposed to call in the aid of a special and unknown form of energy to explain those manifestations." Ho. never\6tates, he neveT even recognises, the essential and unique feature of living things that, from minute particles of the enormously complex substance termed protoplasm, builds up a ■ structure which, by a wonderfully accurate balance of forces, maintains itself for indefinite periods in almost identical forms. Surely this power of wast© and repair, this condition of constant internal 'flux, this taking in. of food and converting it into blood and muscle, bone and tendon, hair' and skin, together with the marvellous nervous system with its mysterious powers of sensation and motion—surely all this implies law's and forces which are not "identical with those which govern inanimate matter." '

An "Amazing Assertion." When we consider further, that, by slow but incessant adaptive changes throughout the myriads of ages of geological time, this marvellous life-power has produced the infinitely diversified and glorious pageant of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, we are more than ever convinced that the laws, forces, and agencies wluch have sufficed to produce and modify the earth itself are not those which have originated and maintained the life-world. Yet Dr. Sehaefer concludes with the amazing assertion that, the more we study these worte of life, the more willing we shall be to impute them all .to known.mechanical and physical forces, and the less need we shall And "to call in the aid of a special and unknown form of energy to explain these manifestations."

Before going further it will be well to show, by reference to the writings of some of the greatest of living physiologists, that these views are not generally accepted. Max Verwora, for instance, although opposing ''vitalism" as strongly as Dr. Schae--I'er himself, admits that thero is a great difference between the dead and the living cell, and ossuresas'that "substancesexist in living which' are not to be found in dead cells." He also' recognises the constant internal motions of the living cell; the incessant waste. and repair of the highly complex organism for indefinite periods; its resistance, during life to destructive agencies to which, 'it succumbs the moment life ceases. These characteristics Dr. Sohaefer hardly alludes to, and does not even attempt to explain as the result of chemical or mechanical forces. ..:'.'"

The complex changes going on in every cell and atom of every, living creature during its whole term of life is summarised in the. one-vord "growth"; and, being so familiar, is taken to explain everything, while it really explains nothing, as many of the greatest authorities fully recognise. But such a growth as this [referring to the antlers of a deer], wonderful and beautiful as' it is, and absolutely inexplicable as the result of chemical or mechanical forces acting upon protoplasm, is as nothing in comparison with other processes and products of life. The most remarkable of these are the plumage of birds and the metamorphosis of' the higher insects. ...

Miracle of Adaptive Structure. When we consider the myriads of cells of which each feather consists, each of which must have a special form to fill its place in the structure,' and that . every leather on a bird's body has a special shape and texture, and often a peculiar colour, so exactly adapted to that of adjacent feathers as to form a special pattern on' the outer siir- ' face of the bird, and that the whole of this miracle of adaptive structure is reproduc-' ed afresh each year with amazing rapidity, how grotesquely inadequate is tho statement that all this is produced bv chemical and mechanical laws, and that it is quits unnecessary aoid unscientific to suppose that any special "vital" forces are required to account for them. But in all these cases, and in the whole process of growth and assimilation, from tho strange vital phenomena occurring in every cell to its final destination as part of the finished structure of. the living organism, a never-ceasing, guiding agency is needed, or disorganisation a ad death inev. itably ensues. It.was the absolute necessity for some such power or guiding , agency that compelled the arcli-agiiostic Ilneckel himself to postulate a soul in every cell, 'but, as he frequently declares, a quite rudimentary soul, inasmuch as it is unconscious ! Limitation of space forbids me from giving any details of the second of the marvels of organisation already referred to— that of the metamorphosis of the higher insects, such os the moths and butterflies; tho bare facts must suffice. These aro, that the worm-like larvae pass their lives from the egg to the full-grown caterpillar as mere feeding machines. .They tlien become dormant in tho pupa state, when the whole of the internal organs decompose into a pulpy mass, and then, instead of dying, which is the usual result of decomI position, a new and totally distinct winged I insect is built up by dirootivo vital force*, [a true motaawrDiiosifl, and one of the most

antecedently improbable and apparently miraculous, in tho whole series of life phenomena. Soma Activo Mind Power We ceo then that in tho wholo wast world of lifo, in all its myriad forms, whether wo examine tho lowest types possessed of the simplest characteristics of life, or whether in tho higher forms, we follow the process of growth from a single coll up to tlio completed organism—even to that of a living, moving, fading, thinking, reasoning being such as man himself—wo find everywhere a stupendous, unceasing scries of continuous motions of the gases; fluids and solids of.which the body consists. These motions are strictly coordinated, and .taken together with tlio requisite directing and organising forces, imply tho prosonco of soino active mindpower. Hence the conclusion of John Hunter, accepted as indisputable by Huxley, that "lifo is tho cause, not the consequence, of organisation." llenco also the "cell-soul" of Haeekol, though minimised to complete ineffectiveness by being unconscious. In view of all these marvellous phenomena, how totally inadequate aro references bo "growing crystals," nnd repeated assertions that wo shall some day produce the living matter of tho nucleus by a chemical process; that "tlio nucleus is in fact "the directing agont" in all the changes which take place within the living cell, and that "without doubt this substance (when produced ohemicolily) will bo found to exhibit tho phenomena which wo are in the habit of associating with the term 'life.'"

Finally, Dr. Schaefer assures us that, as supernatural intervention is unscientific, "we are compelled to "believe that living matter must have owed its origin, to causes similar in character to those which havo been instrumental in producing all other forms of matter in tho universe; in other words, to a process of gradual evolution." I submit that, in view of the actual facts of growth, and organisation as hero briefly outlined, and that living protoplasm has never been chemically produced, the assertion, that life is due to chemical and mechanical, processes alone is quite unjustified. Neither tho probability of such a.n, origin, nor even its possibility, has been supported by anything which can bo termed scientific facts or logical reasoning.