ABSTRACT
Biologists today almost without exception assume that life evolved from non-living matter, a probability suggested by the difficulty of finding a dividing line between organic and inorganic matter which has already been observed and discussed. In these days there are no supporters among scientists of the idea of special creation to account for the appearance of life on earth, and the theory of ‘seeding’—of the influx of spores from outer space— apart from its own internal difficulties, does not solve the problem of the origin of life, but only removes the scene of its occurrence from the confines of the earth. The questions to be faced, therefore, are how it is possible for inorganic physico-chemical activity to result in the formation of organic substances, of protoplasm and the proliferation of living forms; how non-self-reproductive chemico-physical systems can give rise to self reproducing organisms; how non-auturgic processes can issue in self-maintaining adaptive and ultimately in purposive activity.
