*
* See his address in Nature, vol. 76, p. 651. For other
speculations see Verworn's "General Physiology," Butler Burke's
"Origin of Life" (1906), and Dr. Bastian's "Origin of Life"
(1911).
It is evident that the popular notion that scientific men have
declared that life cannot be evolved from non-life is very far
astray. This blunder is usually due to a misunderstanding of the
dogmatic statement which one often reads in scientific works that
"every living thing comes from a living thing." This principle
has no reference to remote ages, when the conditions may have
been different. It means that to-day, within our experience, the
living thing is always born of a living parent. However, even
this is questioned by some scientific men of eminence, and we
come to the third view.
Professor Nageli, a distinguished botanist, and Professor
Haeckel, maintain that our experience, as well as the range of
our microscopes, is too limited to justify the current axiom.
They believe that life may be evolving constantly from inorganic
matter. Professor J. A. Thomson also warns us that our experience
is very limited, and, for all we know, protoplasm may be forming
naturally in our own time.
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