LIFE AND MATTER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 99, 12 September 1912, Page 4

LIFE AND MATTER.

Judging by the brief abstract supplied in tbe cable columns, Professor iSchaefer has gone much further than most scientists ai;o usually inclined to go in making publie assertions about the nature of Life and its relation, to Matter (says the Auckland ;Star). According to this newest exposition of scientific thought on thiri profoundly interestingly subject, Life is "purely a matter of chemical interaction," and in view of the most recent scientific researches lie is compelled to believe it otcs its origin to Evolution. The production of Life from inorganic compounds he regards as practically proved, and lie feels justified in assuming that this process of evolution has not been completed once and for all, but that it is still in progress now. These are bold words, ami even the inadequate summary of Professor Schaefer's speech now before us appears fully to justify the comment of one of his most eminent colleagues that not even TyndalTs celebrated Belfast address was better calculated to provoke discussion among those whose intellectual tastes and sympathies lead them to the consideration of tihe profoundest problems of Nature and, of Life. In considering the precise significance of. Professor Schaefer's remarks, it is, of course, important to hear in niind the distinction which the Times has not failed to draw between the origin of 'Life and the origin of that immaterial element in Man which, for want of a better title, we may conveniently describe as the Soul (continues our contemporary). Briefly, Professor Schaefer eontends for the,spontaneous generation of Life. But this does not necessarily prevent anyone who adopts Ins views from holding that.-'the Special form of dcvclopmcul which has'produced all our highest intellectual and spiritual qualities may not be sunplv and solely material in its character." Sir : 'oliver Lodge, for example, and many other eminent scientists, maintain that, even iF Life did originally spying from dead Matter, it is impossible to account for the special line of development that. Man lias taken without assuming that some directing Force ov inllucnce has exercised control over the course of his evolution. The possibility of. "Abiogeiiosis/' as it is sometimes termed, is thus not incompatible with Ihe existence of n spiritual element or factor in the universe: and so from the standpoint of the idealist Materialism 'oses more than half its inanity nnd gloom. To regard Materialism as a "counsel of despair" would certainly not justify us in rejecting it if it were scientifieally proved .to be true. Put it must not be forgotten that Materialism has no positive evidence to support it—nothing but imperfect inferences and incomplete ami'ogic-:.' From the days of Vogt and Bteliwr downward all the most eminent scientific thinkers, whatever their prejudices, have joined in denouncing as crude and irratinnn! such Materialistic dogmas as that "Matter creates Mind," or "Ilie brain secretes thought." Moreover, such experiments in the artificial creation of life as those so confidently eiino-uiiced seven years ago by Mr Piitler Pnrk.e have all in turn proved to lie. inconclusive: and to-day we can still say that Materialism as a scientific iheorv is entirely unproved. In any case, we might even accept Profe«or sVliaefer's somewhat dogmatic utterances about the Origin of Life as provisionally trip', without feeling logically compelled to reeard Man's spiritual aspirations as a delusion, or-to despair of the Soul and its hope of ■'mnioviality.