Part 1 — CHAPTER I THE ORIGIN OF LIFE (continued 2)

§ 8. An Inevitable Corollary

But, if inorganic matter is impotent to vitalize itself by means of its native physicochemical forces, the inevitable alternative is that the initial production of organisms from inorganic matter was due to the action of some supermaterial agency. Certain scientists, like Henderson of Harvard, while admitting the incredibility of abiogenesis, prefer to avoid open conflict with mechanism and materialism by declaring their neutrality. “But while biophysicists like Professor Schäfer,” says Henderson, “follow Spencer in assuming a gradual evolution of the organic from the inorganic, biochemists are more than ever unable to perceive how such a process is possible, and without taking any final stand prefer to let the riddle rest.” (“Fitness of the Environment,” p. 310, footnote.) Not to take a decisive stand on this question, however, is tantamount to making a compromise with what is illogical and unscientific; for both logic and the inductive trend of biological facts are arrayed against the hypothesis of spontaneous generation.

In the first place, it is manifest that organic life is neither self-explanatory nor eternal. Hence it must have had its origin in the action of some external agency. Life as it exists today depends upon the precedence of numerous unbroken chains of consecutive cells that extend backward into a remote past. It is, however, a logical necessity to put an end to this retrogradation of the antecedents upon which the actual existence of our present organisms depends. The infinite cannot be spanned by finite steps; the periodic life-process could not be relayed through an unlimited temporal distance; and a cellular series which never started would never arrive. Moreover, we do not account for the existence of life by extending the cellular series interminably backward. Each cell in such a series is derived from a predecessor, and, consequently, no cell in the series is self-explanatory. When it comes to accounting for its own existence, each cell is a zero in the way of explanation, and adding zeros together indefinitely will never give us a positive total. Each cell refers us to its predecessor for the explanation of why it exists, and none contains within itself the sufficient explanation of its own existence. Hence increasing even to infinity the number of these cells (which fail to explain themselves) will give us nothing else but a zero in the way of explanation. If, therefore, the primordial cause from which these cellular chains are suspended is not the agency of the physicochemical forces of inorganic nature, it follows that the first active cause of life must have been a supermaterial and extramundane agency, namely, the Living God and Author of Life.

As a matter of fact, no one denies that life has had a beginning on our globe. The physicist teaches that a beginning of our entire solar system is implied in the law of the degradation of energy, and various attempts have been made to determine the time of this beginning. The older calculations were based on the rate of solar radiation; the more recent ones, however, are based on quantitative estimates of the disintegration products of radioactive elements. Similarly, the geologist and the astronomer propound theories of a gradual constitution of the cosmic environment, which organic life requires for its support, and all such theories imply a de novo origin or beginning of life in the universe. Thus the old nebular hypothesis of Laplace postulated a hot origin of our solar system incompatible with the coëxistence of organic life, which, as the experiments of Pasteur and others have shown, is destroyed, in all cases, at a temperature just above 45° Centigrade (113° Fahrenheit). Even the enzymes or organic catalysts, which are essential for bio-chemical processes, are destroyed at a temperature between 60° and 70° Centigrade. This excludes the possibility of the contemporaneousness of protoplasm and inorganic matter, and points to a beginning of life in our solar system. Moreover, independently of this theory, the geologist sees in the primitive crystalline rocks (granites, diorites, basalts, etc.) and in the extant magmas of volcanoes evidences of an azoic age, during which temperatures incompatible with the survival of even the blue-green algæ or the most resistent bacterial spores must have prevailed over the surface of the globe. In fact, it is generally recognized by geologists that the igneous or pyrogenic rocks, which contain no fossils, preceded the sedimentary or fossiliferous rocks. The new planetesimal hypothesis, it is true, is said to be compatible with a cold origin of the universe. Nevertheless, this theory assumes a very gradual condensation of our cosmos out of dispersed gases and star dust, whereas life demands as the sine qua non condition of its existence a differentiated environment consisting of a lithosphere, a hydrosphere, and an atmosphere. Hence, it is clear that life did not originate until such an appropriate environment was an accomplished fact. All theories of cosmogony, therefore, point to a beginning of life subsequent to the constitution of the inorganic world.

Now, it is impossible for organic life to antecede itself. If, therefore, it has had a beginning in the world, it must have had a first active cause distinct from itself; and the active cause, in question, must, consequently, have been either something intrinsic, or something extrinsic, to inorganic matter. The hypothesis, however, of a spontaneous origin of life through the agency of forces intrinsic to inorganic matter is scientifically untenable. Hence it follows that life originated through the action of an immaterial or spiritual agent, namely, God, seeing that there is no other assignable agency capable of bringing about the initial production of life from lifeless matter.

§ 9. Futile Evasions

Many and various are the efforts made to escape this issue. One group of scientists, for example, attempt to rid themselves of the difficulty by diverting our attention from the problem of a beginning of organic life in the universe to the problem of its translation to a new habitat. This legerdemain has resulted in the theories of cosmozoa or panspermia, according to which life originates in a favorable environment, not by reason of spontaneous generation, but by reason of importation from other worlds. This view has been presented in two forms: (1) the “meteorite” theory, which represents the older view held by Thomson and Helmholtz; (2) the more recent theory of “cosmic panspermia” advocated by Svante Arrhénius, with H. E. Richter and F. J. Cohn as precursors. Sir Wm. Thompson suggested that life might have been salvaged from the ruins of other worlds and carried to our own by means of meteorites or fragments thrown off from life-bearing planets that had been destroyed by a catastrophic collision. These meteorites discharged from bursting planets might carry germs to distant planets like the earth, causing them to become covered with vegetation. Against this theory stands the fatal objection that the transit of a meteorite from the nearest stellar system to our own would require an interval of 60,000,000 years. It is incredible that life could be maintained through such an enormous lapse of time. Even from the nearest planet to our earth the duration of the journey would be 150 years. Besides, meteorites are heated to incandescence while passing through the atmosphere, and any seeds they might contain would perish by reason of the heat thus generated, not to speak of the terrific impact, which terminates the voyage of a meteorite.

Arrhénius suggests a method by which microörganisms might be conveyed through intersidereal space with far greater dispatch and without any mineral vehicle such as a meteorite. He notes that particles of cosmic dust leave the sun as a coronal atmosphere and are propelled through intervening space by the pressure of radiation until they reach the higher atmosphere of the earth (viz. at a height of 100 kilometers from the surface of the latter), where they become the electrically charged dust particles of polar auroras (v.g. the aurora borealis). The motor force, in this case, is the same as that which moves the vanes of a Crookes’ radiometer. Lebedeff has verified Clerk-Maxwell’s conceptions of this force and has demonstrated its reality by experiments. It is calculated that in the immediate vicinity of a luminous surface like that of the sun the pressure exerted by radiation upon an exposed surface would be nearly two milligrams per square centimeter. On a nontransparent particle having a diameter of 1.5 microns, the pressure of radiation would just counterbalance the force of universal gravitation, while on particles whose diameter was 0.16 of a micron, the pressure of radiation would be ten times as great as the pull of gravitation. Now bacterial spores having a diameter of O.3 to O.2 of a micron are known to bacteriologists, and the ultramicroscope reveals the presence of germs not more than O.1 of a micron in size.[11] Hence it is conceivable that germs of such dimensions might be wafted to limits of our atmosphere, and might then be transported by the pressure of radiation to distant planets or stellar systems, provided, of course, they could escape the germicidal action of oxidation, desiccation, ultra-violet rays, etc. Arrhénius calculates that their journey from the earth to Mars would, under such circumstances, occupy a period of only 20 days. Within 80 days they could reach Jupiter, and they might arrive at Neptune on the confines of our solar system after an interval of 3 weeks. The transit to the constellation of the Centaur, which contains the solar system nearest to our own (the one, namely, whose central sun is the star Alpha), would require 9,000 years.

Arrhénius’ theory, however, that “life is an eternal rebeginning” explains nothing and leaves us precisely where we were. In the metaphysical as well as the scientific sense, it is an evasion and not a solution. To the logical necessity of putting an end to the retrogradation of the subalternate conditions, upon which the realities of the present depend for their actual existence, we have already adverted. Moreover, the reasons which induce the scientist to postulate a beginning of life in our world are not based on any distinctive peculiarity of that world, but are universally applicable, it being established by the testimony of the spectroscope that other worlds are not differently constituted than our own. Hence Schäfer voices the general attitude of scientific men when he says: “But the acceptance of such theories of the arrival of life on earth does not bring us any nearer to a conception of its actual mode of origin; on the contrary, it merely serves to banish the investigation of the question to some conveniently inaccessible corner of the universe and leaves us in the unsatisfactory condition of affirming not only that we have no knowledge as to the mode of origin of life—which is unfortunately true—but that we never can acquire such knowledge—which it is to be hoped is not true. Knowing what we know, and believing what we believe, ... we are, I think (without denying the possibility of the existence of life in other parts of the universe), justified in regarding these cosmic theories as inherently improbable.” (Dundee Address of 1912, cf. Smithson. Inst. Rpt. for 1912, p. 503.)

Dismissing, therefore, all evasions of this sort, we may regard as scientifically established the conclusion that, so far as our knowledge goes, inorganic nature lacks the means of self-vivification, and that no inanimate matter can become living matter without first coming under the influence of matter previously alive. Given, therefore, that the conditions favorable to life did not always prevail in our cosmos, it follows that life had a beginning, for which we are obliged to account by some postulate other than abiogenesis. This conclusion seems inescapable for those who concede the scientific absurdity of spontaneous generation, but, by some weird freak of logic, not only is it escaped, but the very opposite conclusion is reached through reasoning, which the exponents are pleased to term philosophical, as distinguished from scientific, argumentation. The plight of these “hard-headed worshippers of fact,” who plume themselves on their contempt for “metaphysics,” is sad indeed. Worsted in the experimental field, they appeal the case from the court of facts to that aprioristic philosophy. “Physic of metaphysic begs defence, and metaphysic calls for aid on sense!”

Life, they contend, either had no beginning or it must have begun in our world as the product of spontaneous generation. But all the scientific theories of cosmogony exclude the former alternative. Consequently, not only is it not absurd to admit spontaneous generation, but, on the contrary, it is absurd not to admit it. It is in this frame of mind that August Weismann is induced to confide to us “that spontaneous generation, in spite of all the vain attempts to demonstrate it, remains for me a logical necessity.” (“Essays,” p. 34, Poulton’s Transl.) The presupposition latent in all such logic is, of course, the assumption that nothing but matter exists; for, if the possibility of the existence of a supermaterial agency is conceded, then obviously we are not compelled by logical necessity to ascribe the initial production of organic life to the exclusive agency of the physicochemical energies inherent in inorganic matter. Weismann should demonstrate his suppressed premise that matter coincides with reality and that spiritual is a synonym for nonexistent. Until such time as this unverified and unverifiable affirmation is substantiated, the philosophical proof for abiogenesis is not an argument at all, it is dogmatism pure and simple.

But, they protest, “To deny spontaneous generation is to proclaim a miracle” (Nägeli), and natural science cannot have recourse to “miracles” in explaining natural phenomena. For the “scientist,” miracles are always absurd as contradicting the uniformity of nature, and to recur to them for the solution of a scientific problem is, to put it mildly, distinctly out of the question. Hence Haeckel regards spontaneous generation as more than demonstrated by the bare consideration that no alternative remains except the unspeakable scientific blasphemy implied in superstitious terms like “miracle,” “creation,” and “supernatural.” For a “thinking man,” the mere mention of these abhorrent words is, or ought to be, argument enough. “If we do not accept the hypothesis of spontaneous generation,” Haeckel expostulates, “we must have recourse to the miracle of a supernatural creation.” (Italics his—“History of Creation,” I, p. 348, Lankester’s Transl.) It would be a difficult matter, indeed, to cram more blunders into one short sentence! We will not, and need not, undertake to defend the supernatural here. Suffice it to say, that the initiation of life in inorganic matter by the Author of Life would not be a creation, nor a miracle, nor a phenomenon pertaining to the supernatural order.

The principle of the minimum forbids us to postulate the superfluous, and a creative act would be superfluous in the production of the first organisms. Inorganic nature contains all the material elements found in living organisms, and all organisms, in fact, derive their matter from the inorganic world. If, therefore, they are thus dependent in their continuance upon a supply of matter administered by the inorganic world, it is to be presumed that they were likewise dependent on that source of matter in their first origin. In other words, the material substrata of the first organisms were not produced anew, but derived from the elements of the inorganic world. Hence they were not created, but formed out of preëxistent matter. A creative act would involve total production, and exclude the preëxistence of the constituent material under a different form. A formative act, on the contrary, is a partial production, which presupposes the material out of which a given thing is to be made. Hence the Divine act, whereby organic life was first educed from the passive potentiality of inorganic matter, was formative and not creative. Elements preëxistent in the inorganic world were combined and intrinsically modified by impressing upon them a new specification, which raised them in the entitive and dynamic scale, and integrated them into units capable of self-regulation and reflexive action. This modification, however, was intrinsic to the matter involved and nothing was injected into matter from without. Obviously, therefore, the production of the first organisms was not a creation, but a formation.

Still less was it a miracle; for a miracle is a visible interposition in the course of nature by a power superior to the powers of nature. A given effect, therefore, is termed miraculous with express reference to some existing natural agency, whose efficacy it, in some way, exceeds. If there existed in inorganic nature some natural process of self-vivification, then any Divine interposition to produce life independently of this natural agency, would be a miraculous intervention. As a matter of fact, however, inorganic nature is destitute of this power of self-vitalization, and consequently no natural agency was superseded or overridden by the initial imparting of life to lifeless matter. Life was not ordained to originate in any other way. Given, therefore, this impotence of inorganic nature, it follows that an initial vivification of matter by Divine power was demanded by the very nature of things. The Divine action did not come into competition, as it were, with existing natural agencies, but was put forth in response to the exigencies of nature itself. It cannot, therefore, be regarded as miraculous.

Nor, finally, is there any warrant for regarding such an initial vivification of matter as supernatural. Only that is supernatural which transcends the nature, powers, and exigencies of all things created or creatable. But, as we have seen, if life was to exist at all, a primal animation of inanimate matter by Divine power was demanded by the very nature of things. Here the Divine action put forth in response to an exigency of nature and terminated in the constitution of living nature itself. Now, the effect of a Divine action, by which the natures of things are initially constituted, plainly pertains to the order of nature, and has nothing to do with the supernatural. Hence the primordial constitution by Divine power of living nature was not a supernatural, but a purely natural, event.