Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-09-18
Life Evolved From Matter.
THEORY ADVANCED BRITISH scIENTsT-NoRaANtc aRowTH
FINALLY BECOMES oReANIc-PRocEss STILL GOING osss

motion of the infusorian or of the Gil
| lated cell; as the contraction of a mus
| Gle under the governance of the will,
| or as the throbbing Of the human
heart responsive to every emotion of
| the mind, We cannot but conclude that
it is alike subject to and produced in
| conformity with the general laws of
| matter. by agencies resembling those
which cause movements in Iffeless ma
| terial.
The Meteorite Theory.
"Varieus eminent scientific men have
| supposed that life has not actually
originated ON our globe, but has been
| brought to it from another planet or
| from another stellar system. Some of
my audience may still remember the
controversy that was excited when the
| theory of the origin of terrestrial life
| by the INTERPRETATION of metearite
was propounded by Sir William
| Thompson in his Presidential address
| at the meeting of his association in
Edinburgh in 1871. TO this meteorite
| theory the apparently fatal objection
| was raised that il would take some
| 60,0000 600 years for a meteorite to
| travel from the nearest stellar sys-
| tenn to our earth, and it is inconceiv-
able that any kind of life could be
| maintained during such period.
Even from the nearest planet $50
years would be necessary, and the
heating OF the meteorite in passing
| through our atmosphere and it's i'm
pact with the earth would, in all pro-
! liability, destroy any lie which might
have existed within it.
But the acceptance of such a theory
of the arrival of life on the earth does
not bring US any nearer to a con.
ception of its actual mode of origin;
on the contrary. it merely serves to
Danish the Investigation of the ques-
ton to some conveniently inaccessible
corner OF the universe, and leaves us
in the unsatisfactory position Of at
knowledge us to the modeaof origin OF
life which is unfortunately true-7but
that we never can acquire such
knowledge. which it is to be hoped is
not true. Knowing what we know and
believing what we believe, as TO the
part played by evolution in the de-
velopment OF terrestrial matter, we
are. l think without denying the pos
sibility of the existence of life in 9TH
er parts of The unverse) justified in
regarding these cosmic theories as in
herently imp atatIe-at least in com
parison with tire solution of the prob
lem which the evolutionary hypothesis
offers.
The Evolutionary Theory.
Il assume that the majority of my
audience have at least a general idea
of the scope of this hypothesis, the
general acceptance of which has with
in the last sixty years altered the
whole aspect, not only of biology, but
of every other branch of natural sci
ence. including astronomy, geology,
physics and chemistry. TO those who
nave net this familiarity l would rec
ommen1 the perusal of a little book
by Professor Judd entitled The Com
ing of Evolution which has recently
appeared as one of the Cambridge
manuals.
II know of no similar book IN which
the subject is as clearly and sueeinct-
~ treated. Although the author no.
where expresses the opinion that the
actual origin of life on the earth has
arisen by evolution from non-living
this or any similar exposition in which
the essential unity of the evolution
process is insisted upon, without con-
Guiding that the origin of life must
have been due to the same process,
this process being without exception,
continuous, and admitting of no gap
at any part of it's course. Looking
therefore az the evolution of living
matter by the light which is shed
upon it from the study of the evolu-
ton of matter in general we are led
to regard ii as having been produced,
not ty q sudden alteration, whether
exerted by natural or supernatural
agency, but by a gradual process of
change from material which was life
less. through material ON the border-
land between inanimate and animate,
to material which has all the charac-
teristics to which we attach the term
life So fer from expecting a sud
den leap from an inorganic, or at least
an unorganized, into an organic and
organized condition, from an entirely
inanimate substance to a completely
auffnate state of being, SHOULD we not
rather expect a gradual procession of
changes from inorganic to organic
matter, through stages of gradually
Increasing complexitS until material
which can be termed living is at
tained? And in place of looking for
the production Of fully formed living
organisms in Theoretically scaled
TASKS, should we not, rather. search
Nature herself. under natural eondi-
lions, fer evidence of the existence,
either in the past or in the present, of
TRANSITIONAL forms between living and
non-liViug matter?
'6lulqIssoduI! opa kRu 'HlInoglp e'lL.,
of obtaining evidence of such evolu-
ten from the past history Of the globe
is Obvious. Both the hypothetical
transitional material and the living
material which was originally evolved
from it may, as CacalluT has suggest
ed, have taken the form of diffused
ultra microscopic particles of living
substance. and even if they were not
diffused but aggregated into masses,
these masses could have been physic-
ally nothing more than colloidal wa
terry slime which would leave no im-
press upon any geological formation.
Myriads of years may have elapsed
Before some sort &C. skeleton in the