Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/14

 8 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

hypothetical term bion might be given, may lie awaiting discovery within this complex of known elements. Or an unknown source of energy may be active here. Or, as is far more probable from our present state of knowledge, unknown principles of action, reaction and interaction may await discovery: such principles are indeed adumbrated in the as yet partially explored activities of the catalytic agents in living chemical compoimds.

In answer to our first main question, to which we now return, we may express as our own opinion, based upon the logical application of uniformitarian evolutionary principles, that when life appeared some energies preexisting in the cosmos were brought into relation with the elements or forces already existing. In other words, since every advance thus far in the quest as to the nature of life has been in the direction of a physico-chemical rather than a vitalistic explanation, from the time when Lavoisier (1743-1794) put the life of plants on a solar-chemical basis, logically following the same direction, we believe that the last step into the unknown — one which possibly may never be taken by man — will also be physico-chemical in all its measurable and observable prop- erties, and that the origin of life, as well as its development, will ulti- mately prove to be a true evolution within the preexisting cosmos.

None the less, such evolution, we repeat with emphasis, is not like that of the chemical elements or of the stars; the evolutionary process now takes an entirely new and different direction. Although it arises through combinations of preexisting energies it is essentially construc- tive and creative; it is continually giving birth to an infinite variety of new forms and functions which never appeared in the universe before. While this creative power is something new derived from the old, it presents the first of the numerous contrasts between the living and the lifeless world.

We are now prepared for the fourth of our leading questions. It having been determined that the evolution of non-living matter follows certain physical laws and that the living world conforms to many if not to all of these laws the final question which arises is : does the living world also conform to law in its most important aspect, namely, that of fitness or adaptation, or does law emerge from chance?

Let us first make clear the distinction between law and chance. On this a physicist (M. I. Pupin) observes:

In physics, when diBtingrulshing between law and chance, we speak of co- ordinated phenomena like planetary motions, and of nan-coordinated phenomena like the motion of individual molecnles in a large number of molecules. In re- gard to such motion, chance or probability or so-called statistical modes of procedure guide the reasoning. Again, radiation is a statistical or non-coordi- nated mode of procedure, and sin^ it is closely related to the growth of plants (the simplest forms of life) why is not life in its constituent elements a statis- tical or chance procedure? May not life-forms and life itself be differentiated just like the motion of radiating atoms and observable forms of radiation f

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