LIFE’S ORIGIN.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143838, 12 July 1912, Page 7

LIFE’S ORIGIN.

SOME FALLACIES. That life originated from dead matter, a theory to which the materialists are forced to cling,- is often asserted by modern scientists, and it is not uncommon to read an account of how some experimenter has . act/,ally . succeeded in producing living creatures from complex combinations of chemicals. But the Scientific American ) ridicules all such stories, calling them idle myths and beautiful fantasies, and quoting Pasteur and Tyndall as having proved once and for all that only living beings can produce living beings! It was formerly thought that decaying substances gave birth to maggots, but it has been prove dthat' wherever these appear they originated from eggs. The,groat strides of modern medicine have been made through accepting the fact that all bacteria arise from preexisting bacteria, and that if precautions be taken to keep any matter absolutely sterilised no putrefaction or other growths appear. Only through knowledge of this are fruits and vegetables preserved in glass or tin. One of the most persistent discoverers of the Way to produce living flora dead matter is Dr. Charlton Bastian, against whose theories the Scientific American cites the fjict that all living bodies known to science consist entirely or very largely of carbon, compounds, while Dr. Bastjan’s solutions contain no carbon whatever. Therefore, they are not “alive,” . ' . The Swedish scientist, Arrhenius, propounded the beautiful theory that life came to earth from some other planet, but the Scientific American re,marks’ that this does not touch the question of how life or living matter came into being in the first place.