THE ORIGIN OF LIFE

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10713, 8 November 1912, Page 6

THE ORIGIN OF LIFE

CONDITIONS Oi'' THE PROBLEM. in opening a discussion on tho origin of life at the meeting of tlio Bntisli Association recently, Professor Minchin described the subject as the deepest problem that confronts us in nature. A biological specialist, Jio admitted frankly at the outset of his observations that the problem of the origin of life demands for its solution a very complete and exhaustive knowledge, such n,s scientific men have not yet attained to, of many sciences, both organic and inorganic. He went on to say that the body protoplasm, or cytoplasm, of the cell, an distinct from the nucleus, had been I considered by most biologists to represent the true living substance, i • The earliest living being had been I supposed to he formless—masse.s of protoplasm, without nucleus—so-call-ed Moncra. There were, however, , many reasons for .believing that the chromatin siihstnnce, invariably present in the nucleus or occurring in grains scattered in tho cytoplasm represented the primary and essential living matter. Whether life originated on the earth itself, as biologists had generally supposed, or was brought in sumo way to the earth from infinite'xpace, as some physicists had suggested, its first origin involved a synthesis of protein substances in nature hy. some process as yet totally unknown. It seems to him that the first word of the problem of the origin of life wmld lie with the. chemist. Professor Wager, E.R.S., of Leed*, expressed the opinion that as regarded the solution of the problem they had advanced but little. He ciiticised Professor Minehin's views with respect to chromatin, anil also -said that lie did not think it- was fair to say that the movements of certain emulsions precisely resembled tho movements of a living amoeba. They did, no doubt, resemble them to a certain extent, but in the last analysis there was found to be something elusive, something wo could not exactly lay our hands upon in the case of the living organism. Professor Macallurn held that the organism which first came into existence was an ultramicroscopic one. One could not j>:,stulato to-day the conditions under which such organisms came into existence, but at one time the earth was a vast, laboratory, its atmosphere was of an enormous pressure, and electric currents were present which facilitated syntheses of which we had some of the results to-day. Professor Maeallum, E. 8.5., Toronto, said the human mind would never be satisfied with a solution of the problem of life which merely postulated "We shall never know." It was difficult to s.iy what the final solution would be. He himself thought with Tyndall that matter was endowed with the potentiality of life, and to that extent he was in sympathy with tho view of Arrhenius, that there was 'an association between them. That stato would not please tho gallery, which they had always with them. (Laughter.) rnforUmately the gallery sometimes appeared on tho platform, and sometimes (and oftener) in the pulpit itself. (Laughter.) No doubt the organism which first came into existence was an ul-tra-inien»copio one. But the question was, How did this minute orginism come into existence ? At one time the earth was' a gigantic laboratory, where there had been a play of tremendous forces, notably electricity, j which might have produced millions j of times an organism that survived I but a few hours, but which also by a ] favourable conjunction of those forces what we now call life might have come into existence. J)r J. S. Haldane, who was one of several other speakers, said he b•lieved thoroughly in tho evolution of life, and that some day we should trace it back into the inorganic world. But when we had so traced ifc it would bo no longer an inorganic but an organic world. He looked, for future light to the more exact .study of the nature' of what we now call colecules and atoms. It seemed to him that 'their president's address was rather in the direction of delivering biology bound hand aiicl foot t'v the views and the interpretation—tho only interpretation which we could j ■at present arrive at--of the inorganic ] world. I