ORIGIN OF LIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19659, 10 June 1927, Page 11

ORIGIN OF LIFE.

EVOLUTION OF MANKIND. SCIENTIST'S VIVID PICTURE. (Received June 9. 5.5 p.m.) Sun. LONDON. June 8. Sir Oliver Lodge, in the course of an address to the members of the Oxford Psychological .Society, said"l regard it as probable, indeed, almost inevitable, that life will some day be created by biologists in their laboratories." "This idea is not repugnant to religion. It must rather be welcomed, as showing | the amount of thought that is necessary to | produce any imitation of what already ' exists. j "We must not bo afraid of scientific j progress. Tho earth was once a molten ; mass, in which life was impossible, yet lifo somehow and at some time developed out of it. ~ "What has happened in the past ma.y be understood by human beings and I brought about in the future. "Many may fear such a conclusion, be- | lieving that such a self-acting mechanism | would remove from the universo the need i t'Or a planning and creative mind." Such fears were groundless, because a chemist who could make such a vitalised protoplasm was. not himself a self-acting machine. He could not create life unless he himself were fully alive and had adequate knowledge. Therefore life still could not be created without antecedent life. Sir Oliver ended his speech with a vivid picture of the creation of now worlds in which glowing gases were firstly liquified and then gradually cooled and solidified until the localised individual particles of matter become capable of receiving and incorporating some of the general mind of which the ether must be full. Gradually, through age-long stages, particles developed until the reign of individual consciousness began, culminating iii man. "I sbelievo the ether is the physical con- j ccniitant of the Supreme Mind, of which we are conscious of only an" infinitesimal j fraction." Sir Oliver Lodge, who was for many years Principal of the University of Birmingham, is a leading physicist. He has contributed much to the science of wireless telegraphy. Recently ho delivered in London the Halley Stewart lecture, taking as his subject " Some of the Insoluble Problems of Human Existence." One of the problems he chose lor examination was that such a long series of processes and millions of ages should have been necessary for the production of the solar system. It seemed blasphemous to suppose that tho end could have been achieved by a better plan than the one adopted. That the earth can be reasonably said to have gone through a long labour of preparation, before a human raco could exist Upon it, was, Sir Oliver thought, an illuminating and instructive fact. That long period of gestation must increase our sense of responsibility : and although we might be occasionally 'dismayed at the thought of how imperfect we were, and how unworthy of all the pains that had j been bestowed upon us, yet wo might be thankful that we had now at length become conscious of the effort, and, unlike our lowly ancestry, felt that at length wo too might become partners and co-operators in a process which, after all, was only in the beginning. The problems which loomed largest in the mind of the ordinary human being were those which centred round the uncertainties and contingencies of life, and especially those connected with tho undoubted facts of death and bereavement. The consolations of religion mitigated those for some people, but by no means for all. "To some the doctrine of vicarious atonement has brought comfort, but to many it seems illusory and perhaps even unfair. Fear is a terrible bugbear from which faith and knowledge should tree us. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, we are told. I doubt it. It is certainly not the end of wisdom. Tho love of God is much more helpful. It is possible that the science of the future may rush in and restore confidence and bring consolation where religion has failed. Certainly materialistic science will not do so; hut the tendency of the present day is for science to become less materialistic, to realise that after all matter is only something which conspicuously affects the senses, that we do not see things as they really are, and that even tho material universe may ultimately bo found to have an idealistic constitution and be diffused throughout with spiritual reality."