ORIGIN OF LIFE.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 198, 25 September 1914, Page 6

ORIGIN OF LIFE.

HOW MAN GOT THERE. Mr John Burroughs, the great naturalist, has a thought-provoking article in the excellent August number of "Harper's.'! He begins in this arresting way:— "There is one phase of the muehdißeussed question of the nature and origin of life whieh, so far as T know,' has not been considered either by those who hold a brief f,or the physico-chemi-cal view or by those' who stand for some form of vitalism. "I re far to the small-part that life plays in the total scheme of things. ' * The great cosmic - machine would go on just as well without it. -Its relation; to the whole ..appears to be little different from that of a man to the train in which he journeys. Life rides on the mechanical and chemical forces, but it does not seem to be a part of them, nor identical with them, because they were before it, and will continue after ■it 'is gone. "The everlasting, all-inclusive thing in this universe seems to .be inert matter with the energy it holds; while the slight, flitting, casual thing seems to be living matter. The inorganic is from all eternity to all eternity; it is distributed throughout all space, and endures through all time, while the organic is, in comparison, only of the here and the now; it was not here yesterday, and itmay not be here to-morrow; it comes and goes. Life —A Bird, of Passage. "Life is like a bird of,passage, which alights and tarries for a time, and is gone, and the places where it perched and nested and led forth its brood know it no more. Apparently it flits from world to world as the great cosmic spring comes to each, and departs as the cosmic winter returns to each. It is a visitor, a migrant, a frail, timid thing, which waits upon the seasons, and flees from the cosmic tempests , and vicissitudes. ' / | 4 ' How casual, uncertain, and inconsequential ,the vital order seems in our | own solar ..system—9, mere incident or by-product in its cosmis evolution! Astronomy sounds the depths of space, and sees only mechanical' ■ and 'chemical forces at work there. It is almost certain that only a small fraction of the planetary surfaces is the, abode of life. On the earth alone, of all the great family of planets and satellites, is the vital order in full career. Only an' Episode. "Evidently the vital order us only an episode, a transient or a secondary phase of ■matter in the process of cosmic evolution. Side-real space is strewn with dead worlds, as a New England field is with drift boulders. That life has touched and tarried here upon themcan hardly be doubted, but if it is anything more than a passing incident, arf infant crying in the night, a flush of colour upon the cheek, a flower blooming by the wayside, appearances are against it. "We read our astronomy and geology in the light of our enormous egotism, and appropriate all to ourselves* ' l Apparently the cosmic game is plaved for us no more than for the parasites that infest our bodies, or for the frost ferns' that form upon our windowpanes in winter. The making of suns and systems goes on in the depths of spacej. and doubtless will go on to all eternity, without anymore reference to the vital order than to the chemical compounds. , ' Strip the Earth. < ( Strip the earth of its thin pellicleof soil, thinner with, reference to. the mass than is the peel to the apple, and you have stripped i| of its life. Or, rob" it of its::' Watery vapour and carbon dioxide in..the air, both stag\s in the evolution, and you have a dead world.; The huge globe swings through space, only as a mass of insensate rock. So'lim-' ited and-.evanescent is the world of living matter, so vast and enduring is the world of the non-living. .-■ •_• "Looked at in this way, in the light of physical life, I repeat, seems like a mere passing phase of the cosmic evolution, a flitting and temporary stage of matter whic'h it passes through..-.in., the procession of changes on the surface, of a cooling planet. Between the fiery mist of the nebula and the frigid and" consolidated globe there is a brief span, ranging over about Iso degrees, of lem-. pcrat-urv, -.where- life appears, and' orf/anw evolution takes place. Co'nipafecr' with the whole scale of temperature;' from absolute zero to the Avhite heat of the hottest stars, it is about a hand's-; breadth "compared to a mile. Where is the Key? "Life processes cease, but chemical and mechanicalprocesses go on for ever. Life is as fugitive and uncertain, as -the bow in-the clouds, and, like the bow in

the clouds, is confined to a limited rang* of conditions. Like the bow> also, it is a perpetual creation, a constant becoming, and its source is not in the matter through which it is manifested, though inseparable from it. The material substance of life, like the raindrops, is in perpetual flux and change; it hangs always on the verge of dissolution, and vanishes when the material conditions fail, to be renewed again.when they return. v "We know —do we not?—that life is as literally dependent upon the sunas is the rainbow, and equally dependent upon the material elements; but whether the physical conditions sum up the whole truth about it, as they dowith the bow, is the insoluble question. Science says Yes, but"rour philosophy and our religion say No. The poets and the prophets say No, and our hopes and aspirations say No. " Where, shall we look for the kev to this mysterious thing we call life? Life and Death. "Yet here we are,; here-is love and' charity and mercy and intelligence; the fair face of childhood, the beautiful face of youth, the cipaf, strong face of. manhood and womanhood, and the calm,, benign face of old age, seen, it is true, as against a background, of their opposites, but seeming to indicate something above chance and change at the ! heart of nafcure. Here is life in the , midst of death, but death forever playing into the hands of life; here is the- , organic in the midst of. the inorganic,at strife "with it, hourly .crushed by it, I yet sustained and kept going by itsaid. 4 '-JLifc is-the introduction of & - new ' element or force or tendency into the* cosmos. Henceforth the elements go- ', new. ways/ form new compounds, -buildup new forms, and change the face of nature. .Bivers j flow where they never would have iiowed-witlioiit it,, -mountAins fall in a space o'f time .during- | which they sever .would> have fallen;" I barriers arise, rough ways are' madesmooth, a, new world appears —the world;' of the mind and soul of maß. > How Man Got Here. "Iji view- of all .these howman got here is a problem. Why the - slender thread-of his line of descentwas not broken in and up* heavals of the terrible geologic -ages,, what'power or agent'' took a hand infurthering his development,. is beyond the reach of'our biologic science. "Man's is the on!y v intelligence, as> we understand the word, in the uni- '" verse, and his' -intelligence demands-something*-akin -to intelligence in rature |rom which he sprang."