New-York tribune., 1905-08-13

that vital principle and source of vital energy which
in the beginning withstood that high temperature
at which most assuredly our planet must have
once existed. Doubtless there a time when
it existed incandesCent mass at a temperature
which life as we know it could not possibly have
withstood. AS it cooled at time
another life appeared. That is expectation.
Now if in sterizing in the old experiments
of thirty years ago. a teSt-tube containing l1V1ng
the vital processes DESTROYED and do not
appear again, how then, in the larger experiment
in the history of the earth, the conditions
of vital processes have originated? for the mere
fact that it was at higher temperature than that
which could support life was enough also, 1t would
appear to have eliminated all traces of what we
call vitality. Still, say, our expectation IS
that in that larger experiment which forms an
obliterated page in the history of our planet the
important phase in its development, life
doubtless in a simple form did arise. The condl-
tions then must have been different from those
existing in ordinary sterlized testtube, in the
experiments of Pasteur, Tyndall and others. These
experiments have really no bearing on the question
issue to whether radio-activity afford the
energy for life.
The process of radio-activity, however is not
destroyed by heat at least not at temperatures far
higher than any at which life can be maintained
This is the one property of inorganic matter
which has been discovered since the days of Huxley,
and which endOws it with of the properties of
organic nature: OF growth, OF instability and OF
decay; and as in the 'radiobes" of
growth, of subdivision and possibly of repro
duction too
The problem of the origin of life, which the
biologist for the time being has almost, if not alto
gether abandoned, if not in despair, at least in
quiet resignation, would thus appear to present
hopeful signs of yielding solution in the
hands of the physicist than in his own. | say this
with all due Difference. New ideas and new methods
of tackling the question coming within our
reach while physical science is steadily stretching
the border-lne of its territory perhaps even into
the greater world of living things
Behind all these divisions and subdivisions of
the sciences there to be found many assumptions
hypothesis which for the time being may be and
probably are extremely useful, although at the
same time they should be regarded as provisional,
and ought account to be allowed to stand in
the way of free speculation and inquiry on the
hand, give support to gross assurance on the
other. 1t will be observed that views
unlike those of the late Herbert Spencer who
believed that the continuity between animate and
inanimate matter thing which in the course
of time-thOugh to him it not evident when
would be established on experimental basis.
And the late Professor Huxley too, has elOquently
expressed his deep conviction this all
absorbing question: though to him it act of
philOsophc faith, a matter of expectation rather
than of belief. He has we'll said these memorable
words, which than once have been quoted
and requoted that
With organic chemistry. molecular physics and ply
soogy yet in their infancy and every day making pro-