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 BIOGENESIS

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BIOGENESIS

the Prussian legislation of 17 August, 1825, on such marriages, depriving the mother of all rights in the education of her child; he advised the formation of societies to protest against such abuses, and urged on pastors the duty of warning the young of the evils following upon marriages with Protestants. Resist- ing all offers of preferment, he remained in his parish until his death. He left his large library to the people of his parish.

Binterim's WTitings are chiefly remarkable for their depth of research into the sources of ecclesiastical history and literature. In particular his principal «ork, "Die vorzuglichsten DenkwUrdigkeiten der christkatholischen Ivirche mit besonderer Beriicksich- tigung der Disciplin derselben in Deutschland, frei bearbeitet nach der Schrift des Neapolitaners Pel- liccia (de Christiana ecclesis primEe mediae et no- vissims Eetatis politia) " (7 vols., 17 parts, Mainz, 1825-41), is illustrative of many points of Christian Archa;ologj'. In addition to this mention may be made of: "Pragmatische Geschichte der deutschen Concilien" (7 vols., Mainz, 1835-49); and "Die alte und iieue Erzdiocese Koln ' ' (Mainz, 1 828-30) , a treatise on the geography, statistics, and history of the Arch- diocese of Cologne. He also wTote a large number of smaller works on theological, historical, controversial, and apologetic subjects, such as matrimonial ques- tions; the use of Latin in the church ritual; the dis- cussion as to whether St. Peter was ever in Rome, or was Bishop of Rome; the Moyiita Secreta of the Jesuits (Dusseldorf, 1853), an old myth revamped in Northern Germany; the sale of Hosts in Germany and France (2d ed., Dusseldorf, 1852).

Kessel in Kirchenlex., II, 848.

William Devlin.

Biogenesis and Abiogenesis. — According to their Greek deri\-ation these two terms refer to the origin of life. Biogenesis is the theory that life originates only from pre-existing life; whilst the the- ory of abiogenesis implies that life may also spring from inorganic matter as such.

Some philosophers maintain that life ex'sted prior to inorganic matter. Thus Fecliner considers the stars and the universe as conscious organic beings of a higher order, which in the course of time differen- tiated themsehes to organisms of an inferior kind. W. Preyer imagines the present world of organisms as a last remnant of gigantic primeval organisms, whose breath, perchance, was luminous iron-vapour, whose blood was liquid metal, and whose food me- teorites — a fantastic conception which offers no snlulion of the problem. Others, again, as Litbig, Heliulioltz, W. Thomp.son, E. Dubois-Reymond, assume the transference of small living germs from other cosmic globes to our cooling earth by means of meteorites — an evasion of the question at issue, with the additional difficulties arising from the nature of meteorites. Lastly, others admit that life must have originated somewhere and at some time, since our earth and all the celestial spheres were once in a state of fusion, incapable of sustaining living germs. But here opinions diverge. Those who deny a special directive principle assert that matter and energy as such are sufficient to account for the origin of life. Vitalists, on the other hand, maintain that life is generated from living beings only; its origin must ultimately be sought in a creative act of God, who endowed matter with a force sui generis that directed the material energies towards the formation and development of the first organisms. Hence the distinction between abiogenesis and biogenesis. Let us examine which view harmonizes best with the facts actually ob- served.

.\ most careful and universal research has proved beyond prudent doubt that all visible organisms arise only from germs of the same kind and never

from inorganic matter. Omne vivum ex vivo. How- ever the conditions of the experiment be varied, pro'.nded the receptacles and materials are free from living germs, results always verify Pasteur's well-known aphorism: La generation spontanie est une chim'ere. The attempts of J. B. Burke to pro- duce small living cells from inorganic matter by means of radium were unsuccessful; the radiobes produced were merely bursting gas bubbles of microscopic size. Similarly, Pfluger's cyanic acid, which he compared to half-living molecules, is but a dead chemical compound. The formation of cells by a process of crystallization, as was assumed by the founders of the cell-theory has likewise proved unfounded. In short, Virchow's statement, Omnis cellula ex cellulA, has become an a.xiom of biology. Now, it is a principle universally acknowledged that the laws derived from present observations of nature are applicable also to past phenomena. How, then, can the defenders of abiogenesis uphold their theory in the face of contrary facts? — Two explanations are offered. Many authors, such as Halliburton, Verworn, Rosenthal, assume that the conditions of the earth during earlier periods were perhaps more favourable for the origin of life than those which come under our experience. Others call the spontaneous origin of life from inorganic matter a logical necessity, and add as explanation that the cell must consist of more primitive units of life, which will ever remain invisible, and whose spontaneous origin from matter is thus withdrawn from observation. These units of life have re- ceived various names; Weismann, for instance, calls them "biophorids".

But these assumptions are arbitrary. Scientific research has established the cell as the simplest and lowest unit of visible independent life. No living organism has as yet been discovered that did not contain at least two essential elements of great complexity: a granule of chromatin and some amount of cytoplasmic substance. Deprived of these constituents no cell continues to li\e. Hence, if life ever originated from inorganic matter, it had to appear in the form of an organized cell. Invisible biophorids are no more capable of life than the visible chromatin granules, whose parts they are supposed to be. Even if such entities as biophorids could live independently, they could not have origi- nated spontaneously; for however primitive an or- ganism be imagined, it must at least be capable of nourishing itself, of propagating its kind, and of evolving into higher specific forms. But such a diversity of function supposes a differentiation of structure, made up of diif'erent chemical compounds of high tension and continuously unstable equilibrium. Besides, there must be in the most primitive bi- ophorids a perfect correlation of parts and a pur- poseful anticipation of future ends, tending towards the gradual perfection of individual and species. But crystals, as well as all chemical combinations and physical mi.xtures, show clearly that inorganic matter as such tends toward stability of equilibrium and homogeneity of structure. How, then, did those complicated chemical compounds of unstable eciuilibrium which composed the first organisms originate, especially since, at the beginning, the crust of the earth, totally burnt, was in the desolate condition of perfect o.xidation? Besides, it is hard to see how the energy of the sun could serve to reduce the ashes, since to-day that action depends on the presence of chlorophyll and similar sub- stances, which again are products of cells. Even if some form of energy would all at once commence continually to unite the atoms to such unstable and complicated bodies as the phosphoric proteids, there is still wanting a directive to build up, by means of existing matter and energy, the chemical