The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1912. LIFE AND MATTER.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 214, 6 September 1912, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1912. LIFE AND MATTER.

For fkß cause that lacks owictenM, For the wrong that nerd* resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that tee can do.

It is probable that the address just deUvefed by the President of the British

Association on the Origin of Life will ! arouse a vehement controversy at Home,' and. in fact throughout the English- j speaking world. For, judging by the j brief a'be.tract supplied in our caible [ I columns, Professor Schacfer (has gone > i much further than most scientists are ' usually inclined to go in making public , assertions about the nature of Life and I its relation to Matter. According to! this newest exposition of scientific j thought on this profoundly interesting ' subject, Life is '"purely a matter of i chemical interaction," and in view of the most recent scientific researches he is compelled to believe it owes its origin to Evolution. Tho production of Life from inorganic compounds he ; regards a* practically j>roved, and he feels justified further in assuming that i this process oX evolution has not been : completed once and for all, but that' it is still in progress vow. These are i •bold words, and even the inadequate j summary of Professor Sch.i> ■Yγ'* speech | now before us appears full;, to justify . the comment of one of hie -most eminent j colleagues that not oven Tyndall'e eeleibrated Belfast AddTcss -was ibetter calcu- ] lated to provoke discussion among , those I whose intellectual tastes and sympathies j lead them to the consideration of the | •profoundest problems of Nature and of Life. .In considering tho precise significance of Professor Sch*cfer.s remarks, it is, of j oquT3e, important to bear in mind the distinction which the "Times" ha« not j 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. Briefly, Professor I Schaefer contends for the spontaneous i generation of Life. But this does not necessarily prevent anyone who adopt I his views from holding that the speciaJ form of development which has produced all our highest intellectual and spiritual qualities may not be simply and solely material in its character. .Sir Oliver Lodge, for example, and many other eminent scientists, maintain that, even if Life did originally spring from dead Matter, it is impossible to account for the special line of development -that Man has taken without assuming that some directing Force or influence has exercised control over the course of his evolution. The possibility of "Abiogenesis," as it is sometimes termed, is thus not incompatible with the existence of a spiritual j element or factor in the universe; and so from the standpoint of the Idealist Materialism loses more than half its inanity and gloom. To .regard Materialism as a "counsel of despair" would certainly not justify us in rejecting it if it were scientifically proved to be true. But it must not ibe forgotten that Materialism hag no positive evidence to I support itnothing but imperfect infer- i ences and 1 incomplete analogies. Prom' the days of Vogt and Buchner downward all the' most eminent scientific thinkers, whatever their prejudices, have j joined in denouncing as crude and irra- | tional such Materialistic dogmas as that \ "Matter creates Mind," or "the brain j secretes thought." Moreover, such ex- ! periments In the. artificial creation of life j as those so confidently announced seven ' years ago by Mr. Butler Burko have nil ! in turn proved to be inconclusive; and I to-day*we can still say that Materialism ' as a scientific tlhcory is entirely un- '■ proved. In any case, we might even ; accept Processor Schaefer's some-! what dogmatic utterances, about the! Origin- of Life 'a* provisionally trua, without feeling logically compelled' to regard Mac's spiritual aspirations as: a delusion, or to despair df the Soul ] and it* hapref towrtftlity, [