ORIGIN OF LIFE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15552, 6 September 1912, Page 5

ORIGIN OF LIFE

A PROFESSOR'S THEORY.

" DUE TO EVOLUTION."

Ams Association—By Telegraph—Copyright

LONDON,,September 5. (Received S'epf. 5, at 10.35 p.m.) 'fho British Association is meeting at Dundee.

Professor Schaefer, of Hamburg, in his presidential address, dealing with the origin of life, said that setting aside as devoid of soientific foundation . supernatural intervention in the first production of life, wo were compelled to believe Hint it .owed its origin to evolution. Life was purely a matter of chemical interaction, and chemists would sooner or later be able to produce a living substance similar to that from which all the existing vital organisms were evolved. Recent research had suggested the probability that the dividing line between living and non-living matter was less sharp than had hitherto been supposed, lie suggested the need of a careful search for the missing link between living and dead matter. The eolution would bo hopeless if true life was only evolved.once, but he suggested that it was happening still, On the subject of death he disagreed with Professor Metchnikoff. Ho held that old ago and death were a natural and necessary sequence. Even if disease were altogether eliminated certain fixed cells in fho body must grow old and booomo functionlcss.

Professor Halliburton said the address was historic, and might aroiiM a controversy similar to Tyndall's and Huxley's celebrated addresses.

Mr C'aird, of Dundee, a jute manufacturer, has presented tho association with £10,000.

(.Received Sept. 5, nt 11.15 p.m.)

TJi* Times Bays that Professor Schaefer, in oVslaring that tho problems of life areessentially problems of matter, guards himself against crude and obsolete materialism by carefully distinguishing bcUwuu life and soul.