--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Robert C. Webb collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 18 number: 5 published: 1915-03 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Robert C. Webb, "Thoughts on the Origin of Life," *Improvement Era* 18, no. 5 (March 1915): 402–415.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1805unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1805unse start_page: 402 end_page: 415 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1915-03) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1805unse publication_year: 1915 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1915, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Thoughts on the Origin of Life Thoughts on the Origin of Life BY ROBERT C. WEBB [The. seventh of a series of articles written for the Era by the author, on allied subjects. Each article is complete in itself, but students should read the whole series.— Editors.] In the preceding" articles on the subject of the evolution hypothesis we have attempted to discuss the involved issues and arguments with regard to the main contention that all life-forms have been developed through the operation of natural generation from the simplest one-celled creatures, precisely as any animal of the present clay emerges from the one-celled tgg. In spite of the fact that paleontologists have presented numerous presumptive evidences for a considerable range of variation, particularly among the higher vertebrates, we have contended that such constitute extremely meagre supports to the main contention also that, log- ; ically speaking, the careful thinker must bear consistently in mind that variation and organic evolution are positively not co-extensive terms. Their evident interchangeable use by even competent scientists is wholly unwarranted. But it would be unnecessary to call attention to this inconsistency were it not for the fact that the (to-date) largely inconclusive hypothesis of evolutionary develop- ment is a highly-esteemed "working principle" with all sorts of destructive critics of vital religion and common sense. Very many scientists, in attempting to deal with the essential and ultimate facts of creation, have espoused the theory that life is essentially a mode of the universal energy. Although, of course, such a statement can give the mind no clue to the explana- tion of "consciousness" and other facts manifested in life-forms— since it is not perfectly intelligible that the "brain secretes thought, just as the liver secretes bile," as some have held, nor yet that all material particles are accompanied with atoms of "mind stuff," as Clifford and others have stated — yet, in view of the fact that all manifestations of life in a living organism are characterized by the presence and activity of certain forces, chemical, electrical, etc., we may assume it to represent an essential part of the truth. In any event, it is a theory so widely supported by scientific writers — some of them suggest a chemical or electrical "origin" of life that we are in very slight danger of criticism in assuming it in some sense accurate. In using the term "energy," we are to be understood as re- ferring to the basis of all the forces found at work in the material THOUGHTS ON THE ORIGIN OE LIFE 403 world, which, under favoring conditions, is "transmutable" into heat, light, electrical according to the theory ac- activity, etc., cepted by physicists. The meaning of this term "transmutability" may be understood in the current explanation of the transmission of energy from the sun to the earth. Considering the sun to be what it seems, a vast centre of most intense activity, we are accus- tomed to the statement that it lights and warms our earth by rays transmitted to us through interstellar space. In spite of the fact, as believed, that the interstellar space is utterly dark, also so utterly devoid of temperature as to be below the "absolute zero" of physicists — the theoretical point at which gases cease to con- tract (493° Fahrenheit below the freezing point) — we know that solar energy, entering our atmosphere and striking the surface of the earth, becomes transformed into the modes of force known as heat and light, also, probably, into electrical activities of several orders. We can not, however, as a certain writer has expressed it, "hear the awful roar of the sun," and this fact is to be explained quite consistently on the basis of physical theory. All forms of energy are, as believed, manifested in undulatory or vibrating activities in physical substance differing most evidently among ; themselves according to their characteristic wave-lengths and frequencies. This fact has led some physicists to assume that all may be arranged in series of "octaves," after the analogy of the musical scale. Arranging forces according to wave-lengths, we have a very wide range of comparison as between the so-called — "Hertzian waves"- which form the basis of wireless telegraphy •having waves of from one to several feet in length, and the so- called Roentgen, or X-rays, whose characteristic wave-length is calculated at about 1-250,000,000 inch. Audible sounds range from the "lowest," consisting of about 16 vibrations per second, to the "highest," consisting of 38,000 per second. Sound waves may be measured in terms of inches or of intelligible fractions of an inch, but, when we come to light we find a series of wave- lengths, varying from 38,000 to the inch up to 62,000 to the inch. Thus, as we need not be surprised to hear, certain forces, such as sound, manifest through undulatory activities in the atmospheric air, while others, such as light, undulate in the interstitial ether. Accordingly, we need air for the transmission of sound. In the same manner, we need other favoring conditions for the mani- festation of other modes of energy. Regarding the ultimate facts involved in any order of physical energies, we know, of course, nothing at all. Some writers have suggested that the ultimate energy is simply a manifestation of divine power and presence in all creation, which is probably as near to a orecise statement as the human mind is capable of formu- lating. Other writers have suggested that such a description of the one, ultimate energy of the universe involves also that life, 404 IMPROVEMENT ERA viewed as vital or "spiritual" energy, is, in itself, the ultimate mode of expression. However this may be, it remains true that life, as we know it in the physical organisms of this world is found manifested only in certain physical and chemical conditions as, — for example, typically, within the 180 degrees, Fahrenheit, be- tween the freezing and boiling points of water, extremes beyond which life usually ceases. As to whether life can exist under other conditions than the several physical and chemical, limits, — within which protoplasm "the physical basis of life"— can be vitalized, science, of course, knows nothing. Nor are we con- cerned to discuss the matter here. Although we may hold that life, so far at least as it has a distinct physical manifestation, is a mode of energy, it would seem that we are justified in holding that it differs from other modes and manifestations in the fact that its characteristic is concen- trated or localized activity, rather than generalized or diffused, as with other forces in nature. Thus, even though all forces must — have a source of some kind such as the sun, for the light, heat, etc., in the world — we find that their characteristic is to radiate into all directions, or to set up their vibrations in the air, ether, and other media. With life, however, there is no such thing as diffusion. It is to be found, not pervading the atmosphere, but expressed in "living" things," all of which, from the lowest simple cell to the highest and most elaborate creature, differ from un- vitalized substance in the common possession of individuality. Nor can the term "individuality" be applied to unvitalized objects in the same sense as belongs to living things. Even with the crystals of various substances, whose production has often been compared to the essential process by which life-forms come into being, we have "individualization" only as the consequence of activity in the substance, tending to produce separate, definitely- shaped pieces, under such conditions as cooling, the evaporation of a solvent medium (such as water), or the exercise of some certain stress. The size or perfection of crystals seems to be a consequence of the intensity of the change in condition which occasions their production, but the shape, or conformation, ac- cording to which one of the six "systems" of crystallization is fol- lowed, results from the properties of the substance itself, and is characteristic of it. This latter fact is well exemplified by the — study of crystals in polarized light, through which as for exam- ple, in the examination of sugars — profound facts concerning molecular arrangements, etc., have been revealed. Other physical conditions, also, contribute to variation in configuration. Thus moisture collected on a window pane or a stone pavement crystal- lizes along lines resembling vegetation, but, when in the form of finely-divided atmospheric mist, the six-pointed snowflake is the result. THOUGHTS ON THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 405 — In comparing crystals and life-forms as several others have — done before us it may be in place to call attention to the essen- tial difference between the two. In the case of the crystal we have rather a resultant arrangement of the molecules of matter, which seems to indicate that the forces giving it form have ceased to act (although, if we understand them, some authorities seem to hold to a quite contrary conclusion), whereas, in the case of living things, on the other hand, the characteristic material form, in any given case, arises at the start from the activities of certain forces existing, presumably, in the germ, or, at least, directed and determined by its qualities comes to perfection, persists so long ; as the vital forces continue to act, and, on their cessation, enters immediately on inevitable dissolution. Both crystals and organ- isms, therefore, are, in a very real sense, examples of the results of certain energies acting upon matter, since both, in the processes of formation, at least, are shown to be certain centres of activity. Here, however, the analogy seems to cease. In view of the above facts, and of others, also, we may be justified in asserting that the essential fact regarding the organism is the specific directive or determinative principle in the germ that which involves that the forces at work in the development of the mature form shall follow a certain specific line of development, — and no other which is, in a very intelligible sense, a focus or vortex of activity, differing from all other such foci or vortices, either in its own or other species, in a manner analogous to the difference between sound-tones or color-tints. The differences in the latter connections, as already suggested, are to be stated in the terms of the wave-lengths and frequencies of the activities set up by the action of the several modes of energy. Whatever may be the correct terms of expression in the case of vital force, the fact remains that there are to be found in nature or art several closely suggestive illustrations. Sound and light, in certain definite connections, at least, fur- nish suggestive working analogies to the presumed activities which produce the original germ-elements out of which "develop" organ- isms as we know them. Thus, a fact presented to the attention of the sentient organism in the terms of either hearing or vision — produces a distinct impression upon the brain such impression, as has been suggested by some theorists, consists in some definite modification in the structure of some certain cell in the cerebrum — by virtue of which a more or less definite "idea" becomes an element of memory, associative thinking, concept-forming and the ability to discriminate, express or recognize (on repetition) the original matter of sensation. Although no subtlety of human science has yet enabled anyone to "read" a brain, and decipher the individual impressions formed in its mass by the presumed modi- fication of cell-structures, it may be possible to hold that such 406 IMPROVEMENT ERA individual impressions or "modifications" — by virtue of which, for memory, for associative thinking or reasoning, under proper conditions of co-ordination, also, for the expressive faculty (as in art, etc.), the imaginative function of the brain can produce a definite "concept" corresponding more or less accurately to the original "percept" — are in a very real and intelligible sense an- alogous to the cell-modifications or specific potentialities, by virtue of which the egg produced by a parent of a given species infallibly develops into, another individual of the same species. Further- more, in both cases, the production of the "actual" (the mature form) from the "potential" or germinal is a process taking place in precisely the same substance, to wit, protoplasm, "the physical basis of life." Nor is it evident that these "morphological phe- nomena" of either generation or ideation result from inherent properties of protoplasm, as the characteristic crystals of specific — substances salt, quartz, adrenalin, etc. — result from the inherent properties of such substances, expressed under certain favoring conditions. Vital phenomena seem to result from certain impulses originated independently, but "focalized" upon a "plastic" sub- stance, capable, for some obscure reason, of manifesting certain functions which belong to the energy acting upon it, rather than to the substance itself. Assuming that "cerebral phenomena" are good working analogies for the "morphological phenomena" in protoplasm ideas resulting in the one case and organisms in the other — we find that the impulses in the former connection produce cell-modi- fications through the action of perfectly mechanical instruments, the organs of the several senses. The organs are constructed to receive impressions from the outer world of fact, and to translate them into terms capable of producing brain-records. Although the modus operandi in this connection is exceedingly obscure, the science of mechanics furnishes some suggestive analogies, which enable us to understand in a way how the potential becomes the actual, both in ideation and generation, or how the "germ" in both instances becomes the "organism." In the case of sound, for example, we have a wonderfully suggestive analogy for either of the above-mentioned processes in the mechanical phonograph and its record. In this instrument a minute stylus point, secured to a sensitive diaphragm, is caused to travel over the surface of some impressionable substance, like wax or metal foil, and to produce a groove varied by a series of punctures of different areas and depths, as the diaphragm vibrates under the pressure of the successive sound-pulsations that strike it. We have at the completion of the process a "record" which a practiced eye, helped by a microscope, can discriminate from others, but which cannot be "interpreted" until another stylus is drawn along the groove in precisely similar manner. When this THOUGHTS ON THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 407 "reproducer" stylus follows the path, falling successively into each pit and puncture in turn, and causing- its attached diaphragm to reproduce the movements of the "recorder" diaphragm, the result is an entirely recognizable reproduction of the original sounds that caused the formation of the "record" in the beginning. This partial and mechanical analogy may be made even more suggestive in this connection when we consider the possibilities of the machine under discusssion, and of the "record" produced by its operation. If, for example, some certain musical air is per- formed on a given instrument before the recorder diaphragm, we have upon the surface of the cylinder or disc a record of a succes- sion of fundamental tones, combined with a series of overtones characteristic of the timbre of that particular instrument, and both of these may be perfectly reproduced from the record, as already explained. If, now, we make a second record of the same air, played, however, by two instruments, we will have a record com- bining the timbres of both with the same fundamentals, and re- sulting in a very different musical effect. If, again, a third record is formed for the same air, not only with the two instruments, but also with the human voice in singing, we have four diverse elements in the record, the two differing timbres of the two instru- ments, the timbre of the human voice, and, superposed upon its vibrations, the shaping of the sounds into the forms of articulate speech. We may see, therefore, that corresponding portions of the records in the first case and in the third, however faithfully they may reproduce precisely the same fundamental tones, differ in other essential and original particulars, which constitute in them radically diverse sound-potentialities. Nor could we con- ceive of any proposition that the more complex record could be, in any sense, "developed" or elaborated upon the first ; since the differences consist in the essential qualities of the original impulses — originating the records the third containing elements which do not appear at all in the first. The lesson involved in the artificial sound-record may be, perhaps, even more suggestively learned in the Poullsen magnetic phonograph, or "phonautograph". In this instrument a flexible steel ribbon is drawn lengthwise between the poles of two very small electro-magnets, the windings of which are in circuit with the secondary of a telephone induction coil. Words, or other sounds, affecting the telephone transmitter, constantly vary the resistance of the primary coil, or battery circuit, consequently also the durations and intensities of the currents carried on it; induce corresponding currents in the secondary, and thus constant- ly vary the magnetization of the cores of the small electro-mag- nets, whose poles are in proximity to the steel tape. The result of this operation is that the moving steel tape is locally magnetized at numerous successive points in its length, and with constantly 4U8 IMPROVEMENT ERA varying degrees and qualities of magnetization. When, however, a telephone receiver is connected in circuit with the windings of the small electro-magnets, and the now locally magnetized steel tape is again drawn along between the poles as before, the iron of the magnet cores is excited magnetically by each successive spot or centre of magnetization, currents are induced in the wind- ings, and the original sounds — — words or musical tones originally spoken, sung or played into the transmitter, are reproduced in the receiver. In this instrument, instead of the minute series of me- chanical punctures, we have tiny vortices of magnetic circulation each of which differs from all the other magnetic spots in the fact that it contains the potentiality of reproducing, only and pre- cisely, the sounds that originally gave it existence. These mechanical and magnetic effects demonstrate the fact — one form of undulating energy sound such that, in the case of — "foci" as the punctures on the phonograph record, or spots of localized magnetism on the steel tape of the phonautograph, are, precisely, potentialities for the production of ultimate conse- quences utterly different from anything suggested by their con- struction or physical appearance. Why it is that a phonographic record, resulting from a musical air played on a violin, for ex- ample, should be capable of reproducing, not only the air, con- sidered as a succession of fundamental tones, but also the har- monics characteristic of the violin, while the same air played on a horn or flute, consisting of the same fundamentals, differs in possessing harmonics characteristic of the horn or flute, is a question that could be answered only after the most exhaustive investigation. It is even imaginable, however, that, on the basis of such an exhaustive investigation, human ingenuity could compass the feat of producing "phonographic records" mechanic- ally, even taking advantage of knowledge based on thorough familiarity with the essential facts, by introducing weird and — unfamiliar timbres thus "tapping out a tune" that no earthly instrument ever played. As strange and remarkable things have been accomplished. All this is imaginable because of the fact that each separate component of any such records as we have been discusssing repre- sents a group of elements, which, in its entirety, differs from any other having the same fundamentals, in respect of such proportions as may be expressed by one combination of numbers, rather than another. In the magnetic phonograph, for example, it is evident that the several sounds, recorded and reproduced, differ originally merely as the resistance of an electric circuit is modified with a constantly varying frequency. But in these elements we have the potentiality of building tones, timbres and words. This fact is to be seen even more strikingly in Professor Bell's "radiophone" ap- paratus, in which a ray of light, focused through a lens upon the THOUGHTS ON THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 409 silvered surface of a metal diaphragm — which, vibrating under the pressure of sound undulations, constantly varies its reflecting surface (according to the amount of distortion imposed upon it), consequently, also, the amount of light actually reflected, through — given periods is directed upon a cell of selenium, included in circuit with a battery and a magnet telephone receiver. As is well known, the resistance of the metalloid selenium to the passage of the electric current varies directly as the amount of light that strikes upon its surface — its resistance in total darkness is twice as high as in full sunlight. Yet, in the "radiophone" apparatus, its action in constantly modifying the current passing on the telephonic circuit (according to the amount of illumination) en- ables the magnet receiver to reproduce all the complex sounds that originally agitated the silvered diaphragm, as already explained. Here the result is a concern, merely, of ohms and milliamperes, of circuit resistance and current intensity, combined with nothing else, except a varying time-element. All such conditions help to illustrate how we may form a conception of the fact that an organic cell or germ, informed by vital energy, represents a potentiality of producing effects utterly unrecognizable in, and not to be suspected from its present ap- pearance or structure. The organism developed from it, after the cycle of its metamorphosis has been completed, is the product of "evolution" in the sense proper to the original use of that term in biological science, as already explained. That is to say, it is the out-working, the unfoldment, of an involved plan or destiny, which was "stored" in it precisely as sound was "stored" in the mechan- ical or magnetic record already described. As the current phrase has it, it "was there" from the beginning of the cell's life, waiting, like the "stored-up echo" in the phonographic record, for the con- ditions favorable to its complete emergence from the "potential" or possible, into the actual world, as we know it. The involved potentiality of each germ-cell to subdivide and recombine into new forms, until the perfect destined individual is produced, may be compared to some order of "valency" — to use a term familiar in chemical and other sciences— which is con- ceivable as a factor expressible in terms of the relative propor- tions of component elements. Thus the typical cell of one species differs from the typical cell of another, conceivably, just as cor- responding elements of two sound-records, possessing identical fundamentals but differing harmonics. Indeed, the thought is as beautiful as it seems to be accurate, that the fundamental distinc- tions between natural forces and elements are found to be ex- pressible in the terms of number and proportion. The same idea was developed in the Buddhistic teaching on Karma, which, as the leading principle in the doctrine of "metempsychosis" (Samsara), represents each individual as dissolving at death into a sort of 410 IMPROVEMENT ERA — — "echo," so that adopting- a musical metaphor as the consequence of its release, it may form the impulse for the production of a new individual in a favoring environment, very much as the vibrations_ issuing from a bell of given tone may evoke a "re- sponse" from another bell of the same tone, even across a wide distance. The tone and pitch of the bell, its numerically-expressi- ble equivalent or significance — also the resultant of its size, shape — and bulk of metal may be said to be its Karma (Sanskrit, "act" or "doing"), stated in the terms of the frequency and amplitude of its sound vibrations per second. Although the doctrine of Karma was primarily a moralistic solution, it has always been treated as if it had a definite ontological significance. It is thus explained by Professor Rhys Davids, a noted authority "Buddhism claims to have looked through the word soul for the fact it purports to cover; and to have found no fact at all, but only one or other of twenty different delusions which blind the eyes of men. Nevertheless, Buddhism is convinced that if a man reaps sor- ' row, disappointment, pain, he himself, and no other, must at some time have sown folly, error, sin; and if not in this life, then in some former birth. Where then, in the latter case, is the identity between him who sows and him who reaps? In that which alone remains when a man dies, and the constituent parts of the sentient being are dis- solved; in the result, namely, of his action, speech, and thought, in his good or evil karma (literally his 'doing'), which does not die. * * * But the peculiarity of Buddhism lies in this, that the re- sult of what a man is or does is held, not to be dissipated, as it were, but to be concentrated together in the formation of one new sentient — beings new, that is, in its constituent parts and powers, but the same — in its essence, its being, its doing, its karma." Buddhism, pp. 103-104. Of course, in the system to which it belongs, the doctrine of Karma represents one possible intellectual device to escape the un- intelligible hypothesis of"immaterial spirit", even while acknowl- edging the reality of "things unseen and eternal". Instead of an "immaterial" essence, which the mind can scarcely avoid identify- ing with nothingness, it supposes that the resultant of life is, as it — were, a "chord" of vital energies as may be understood partially — from our former musical analogies which can, in effect, exert a "formative pressure", as the modern physicist might term it, upon a suitable receptive substance. From another point of view, also, is the doctrine significant in the present discussion — this is in the fact that, as taught, the Karma' of an individual man, or of the world or universe itself, is the fundamental element that discriminates him, or it, from the universal. Indeed, this tendency to "act", or to "do" certain definite and involved things, is the only reason why the fundamental Akasa ["ether?"] is to be per- ceived in the appearance of "stars, earths, worlds, and changes changing them", or why the "delusion of individual existence" remains the obstacle to attaining Nirvana [the universalized life?]. Quite apart from all the philosophical consequences which THOUGHTS ON THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 411 the doctrine was believed by its original formulator to involve, it argues to,and well illustrates the theory that, in modern terms, the primal germ-element of each individual being is to be considered as a "focus" or "vortex" of energy, of some such character as is suggested by the previously-used analogies. A somewhat similar use of this doctrine of Karma has been made ' by Professor Huxley, who says "What actually happens, in all but the lowest organisms, is that one part of the growing germ (A) gives rise to tissues and organs; while another part (B) remains in its primitive condition, or is but slightly modified. The moiety A becomes the body of the adult and, sooner or later, perishes, while portions of the moiety B are detached and, as offspring, continue the life of the species. Thus, if we trace back an organism along the direct line of descent from its remotest ancestor, B, as a whole, has never suffered death; portions of it, only, * have been cast off and died in each individual offspring * * If we could restore the continuity which was once possessed by the portions of B, contained in all the individuals of a direct line of de- scent, they would form a sucker, or stolon [using the simile of the strawberry plant], on which these individuals would be strung, and which would never have wholly died." Evolution and Ethics, Note 1. "The tendency of a germ to develop according to a certain specific type, e. g. of the kidney bean seed to grow into a plant having all the characters of Phaseolus vulgaris is its 'Karma'. It is the last 'inheritor and the last result' of all the conditions that have affected a line of ancestry which goes back for many millions of years to the time when life first appeared on the earth. The moiety B of the substance of the bean plant is the last link in a once continuous chain extending from the primitive living substance: and the characters of the successive species to which it has given rise are the manifestations of its gradu- ally modified Karma". Ibid., Note 6. In these passages Huxley follows the Buddhistic understand- ing of Karma with perfect consistency the essential element of : the doctrine of metempsychosis is invoked to explain an essential situation in the doctrine of derivative descent. Thus he speaks of a " gradually -modified Karma." [In Buddhistic acceptation, Karma is to be "modified" only as the "moral significance" of the being approaches to or moves away from the ideal "universal life," in which the "delusion of personality" is "blown out" "Nirvana-ed." ] It is doubtful, however, if his inferences in this particular are perfectly logical. Considered as an expression for "potential being", or organism, Karma, as we have seen, is an enlightening term. Taken, however, as Huxley takes it and as — evolutionists in general take the matter of potentiality in the vital germ, as an element susceptible of indefinite variation in its essential constitution— we find that the Buddhistic device for escaping the "absurdities of immaterialism" by assuming a mere effect or potency for "merit or demerit", in a moral sense, for "things done and undone" [so that each succesive "new individ- ual" is morally scaled to begin doing and neglecting precisely 412 IMPROVEMENT ERA where his predecessor left off] is a very unsatisfactory metaphor for biological situations. From all that we know or may surmise regarding the germinal - elements of living things, not only as seen in the partial mechanical analogies, with which we have attempted to illustrate them, but also in all the facts brought to our notice in common observation and experience, it may be held to be fairly evident that the tendency to develop along certain definite lines into organic ma- turity represents an original impulse from without, and in no sense a product of matter, or of any of the forces of which we have knowledge in material nature. The fact of variation in nature seems to be established, as is also the artificial method of "crossing," by which a quality present in one type of organism may be "engrafted" upon another, making a new "breed," but neither of these has any logical relation to the theory that new elements, not previously known in nature, are to be considered pro- ducible by any influences analogous to "artificial selection." In other words, returning again to the metaphor of sound phenomena, we may hold that, on the basis of our knowledge of vital germs, varia- tion in the natural world is either (1) suppression, by which full development is prevented, as we will presently explain, or (2) opportunity, in which obstacles to full development are removed. Neither of these conditions affects — — much less alters the essential germ potentiality, any more than one of the numerous "stops" of a reed or pipe organ, while modifying the timbre of the tone, can change its "fundamental" character. Whether our persistently-used musical metaphor be fully il- lustrative, or not, we may insist, logically enough, that it is valid to the extent, at least, that the original vital germ element is, as we know it, positively not neutral, or passive — so as to be modified by "external influences" or environments of any kind but en- — tirely active, and possessed of a definite significance of its own. The "Karma" of the red ant, or of the Greenland whale, for ex- ample, as produced in the respective parental eggs, brings forth its kind unerringly, although a mere "valency", or, as previously explained, a "numerically-conceivable potentiality", in a speck of matter, indistinguishable — except for size, shape, etc., from — most other specks of similar import. Just as already explained, the minute scratch or puncture of the phonographic record con- tains, in posse, some definite sound, different from all others in point of timbre, volume and pitch, so each minute germinal proto- plast contains in nature's equivalent terms the certainty of the several qualities proper to the species to which the germ belongs. The germ of the bird contains the certain potential equivalent of beak, wings and feathers that of the fish, the invisible determining ; cause of fins, scales and gills; that of man, the rudiments of the "idea" of spiritual possibilities, together with the tendency to THOUGHTS ON THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 413 build up a brain that should think. The involved potentialities of the germinal principle seem nearly endless, as we may guess from the multiplicity of "special instincts" manifested among living things, and which we are asked to believe represent only so many "acquired habits". By what order of phonograph-like "rec- ord", for example, is there impressed upon the tiny brain of the garden wasp the certain knowledge of the area on the body of a larva of alien species, in which a sting puncture will produce paralysis, instead of death, thus preserving the ill-fated victim as food for her unlaid young? [Such instinct must be inherited — and "innate" a cell is "born" with an "idea" involved in its structure, instead of derived from sense experience — since she never saw her own parents, who might have taught her the "trick."] There are hundreds of such "records" that might be mentioned, and all exist wrapped among the "possibilities" of the parental germs. So precise is the knowledge involved, often- — times as in the nest-building instinct, which, as it were, depends — on a whole "cell-literature" of architecture that certain older philosophers offered as solution of the situation the statement, "God is the mind of the brutes" (Deus est anima brutorum) If, however, it can be demonstrated from the rock records, or by experiment, that all life-forms, as we know them, certainly came forth in the course of countless ages of gradual change from a common "indefinite homogeneous" original, each new form, Proteus-like, following every predecessor, we may reasonably assume on the ground of all the knowledge that we possess of germ-potentialities and developments, that all must have existed potentially, or in imminent possibility, from the beginning, await- ing only the favoring opportunity to burst into actual existence just as solar energy hurries toward the earth's atmosphere, in order that it may become transformed into the modes of light and heat. Even assuming that environment, in the form of "natural selection", or whatever we may elect to call it, is a provocative, rather than a permissive, cause of variation, we merely ascribe to its influence a depth and subtlety of influence that is, simply speaking, undiscoverable to science. In either case we state merely all that could be meant by the term "special creation", when examined in the light of scientifically-established fact. [For "special creation" need not imply what Herbert Spencer character- ized as "the carpenter theory of creation", representing God as forming the world as a man makes a box.] Wehave on the one hand the belief in the fundamental and unalterable germ-po- tentialitv, which is the organism in possibility on the other, merely ; a guess' at the creative influence that could modify it— changing its "fundamental", as well as its "harmonics". Positively no valid objection can be urged to the statement that the "organic equival- ents" mentioned above could have existed in original primeval 414 IMPROVEMENT ERA germs, and sprung into developed existence under favoring cir- — — cumstances whatever such may have been any more than that ages of slow upbuilding were necessary to make a germ-equivalent the correspondent of the developed fact, be that bone, muscle, or other structure. Our former analogies tell us this. But, as already suggested, environment plays a great part in life-history,and there is variation of life-forms in numerous instances. Environment may suppress possibilities, just as the conditions of "domestication" modify animals, so as to cause them to lose, wholly or partially, many of their proper characteristics. From the standpoint of the animals, domestication always in- volves a distortion of nature. [A suppressive environment might be to a living organism precisely what a small room would be to a large volume of musical sound: in the latter case harmony is distorted into painful cacophony.] Such conditions may be as- sumed to exist in nature, as seen when birds or insects, from habit, forced or original, disuse and finally, as it might seem,, lose the power of flight — even, in some cases, the organs of flight, also. In the same manner, as we might imagine, if seeking for an "ex- planation", that the trilobites of the Paleozoic Time, which, as some zoologists have indicated, "resemble the embryonic forms of some higher Crustacea", were "let and hundred" from their proper — development by the conditions of life such as they may have — been which obtained in their day. Their sudden disappearance from the rock records in the early Mesozoic measures might be held to indicate some such alteration in these conditions, as would permit development into the "maturity" which nature had in- tended from the beginning. .A partial analogy may exist in the so-called Axolotl, a problematic tadpole-like creature, which some authorities have asserted is merely the undeveloped "larva" of some true newt, and which others claim has actually been known to assume a land-dwelling "maturity", under favoring conditions. It might seem, according to some showings, to represent, under natural conditions, the same sort of permanent "tadpolism" if we may coin a term— as has been artifically produced by certain experimenters with the young of ordinary toads and frogs. [These "permanent tadpoles" not only do not "mature", but, as we are told, actually breed in the larval state.] Similar distortive, or sup- pressive, influences,whatever they may have been, might also be assumed to explain the appearance and persistence— for a time —of some of the huge and unwieldy reptiles of ancient days Why should an ^'orderly progress upward" produce such "anatomical absurdities as have existed at various periods of the world's his- tory? The suppressive and distortive influence of environment might also be invoked to explain the presence of "rudimentary organs in men and other animals. Given the conditions favorable to the appearance of life, and THOUGHTS ON THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 415 we have the earliest germs — all scientists and theorists admit this. Given the possibility of the simplest germs, and we have no war- rant, apart from our tendency to theorize and dogmatize, for deny- ing the possibility of the most complex germ-potentiality nor — yet, its development. Such favoring conditions may not have — been those that now exist on earth we may reasonably assume — that they were not but we know of nothing to prevent the belief that all were "originally created", any more than we know of conditions hostile to the production of any of the colors of the spectrum, or of any of the tones of the musical gamut, even before there was as yet an instrument devised to produce them. It is useless to theorize, however, after we have reached the confines of facts as we know them. One significant lesson, however, lies in the story of the vital germ, considered as a focus of vital energy, which, as it may be, is also a focus of creative activity. The fol- lowing is a very suggestive treatment of this very situation (An Englishman questions a Hindu sage on the mysteries of life.) Pundit (Reading) —"The of a man, whereby he strives. spirit Flashes from star to star — so will if it And — will— sleeps in the smallest drop if it Of midmost heart-blood". Yama sayeth so. Sahib — Yet, Pundit, this is hard to comprehend! How can it be that what hath plenitude To range from star to star should hide itself I' the hollow of a heart? p I answer thee Out of the great Upanishad, surnamed Khandogya! Gather up yon fruit Dropped by the parrots from the Banyan tree! What seest thou therein? $ A scarlet fig Not larger than a Moulvie's praying bead! p. Break it, and say again! $ I break it, Sir, And see a hundred little yellow seeds! p. Break it, and say again! I break a seed; $ though a silkworm's egg It is as slight as Were crushed; and in the midst a germ, a speck! p Break it, and say again! c The speck is gone In touching, Guru! There is nothing now! P Yet, in that "nothing" lay (thou knowest well!) The Nyagrodha tree, the Banyan tree,