The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1936-07-08

approach was thoroughly Sclen-
tific, and for a decade or two
he seemed to be swooping the
field. Then Pasteur, the in
finitely patient, detached and
diligent Frenchman, began pry-
ing and probing even deeper
into the life maze.
He seems to have pretty thor
ougsly disproved the "sui generis"
theory of the origin of life. Life
comes only from life which has
gone before, even if we must reach
out to the stars for some ultimate
source. Such were the findings of
the great PaSteur and the highest
scientific authority of later years.
Only in tiny film does life ex-
list on our earth. Colonel Lind
bergh trapped a few feeble and
rudimentary insects on gelatin in
his flights in the sub-Arctic, but the
higher Stratosphere flights have
caught none. The deeper down
in the sea we go the less is the
hospitality to life in any form.
This range Of a few thousand feet
up and down is Spatially like a
coat of paint on a skyscraper.
We are ''cribbed, cabined cof-
fined and confined in a narrow
little crypt, even if we do see the
stars and bring them to hand
with our great telescopes.
PRE-EXISTENT LIFE
Some Of us like to think that
Venus-wet, hot and cloudy-nur-
lures life, possibly Enthusiastically
different from ours. Then there
are those puzzling criss-cross
canals on Mars. It's all guess
work and maybe "wishful think
ing"
Sir James Jeans says that, all
things considered, the chances are
about 100000 to one against any
particular star having a menage
of planets like our sun, and inf
nitely less would be the chances
of life on any such satellites.
The meteor fans, plausibly, it
seems to me, insist that man is
pretty rash to assume that he has
the only habitable patch of ground
in a universe which ranges
through thousands of light years.
They note that biologists, in assail-
ing the sui generis" theory, have
subjected life to temperature
ranges just about as severe as any
which bacteria might meet on an
interplanetary or interstellar me-
teor ride; that life from pre-exist-
ent life has been Soundly eStab-
lished, and that, certainly, when
our globe was cooking and stew
ing, there was no 'pre-eXistent
life" SO it must have come from
the stars.
Ancient man venerated meteors
as messages from the gods of
remote heavens as the holy
Kaaba of Mecca. Ancient rites
proclaimed the sun as the giver
of all life, as do modern labora-
tory experiments. They set up
chlorophyll, the green pigment of
plants, as the life trap; it can
drink sunlight and build it into
the elements of life.
And what is the wish we make
when we see the tiny meteor
which is a shooting star? To
know the answer to all this? To
live forever? To win a maid or
fortune? To get rid of a tooth
ache? Will our quest for knowl-
edge cease when we begin to get
what we want?
H. G. Wells says no. In his
Utopia, he has a beautiful boy
and girl hurl themselves at the
moon in a rocket plane. The
only excuse for mans existence,
he concludes, is to keep on
branching out, to the furthermost
range of the heavens. An interest
ing life cycle, if it is ever full
filled-to stand here as a bac-
terium riding a meteor, and de-
part as a man riding a rocket.
copyright, 1885. by King Features
Syndicate. Inc.)