THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1937.
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BINTI
SPRAGUE-Born to Mr. and Mrs. W. Sprague, at Queen Mary Hospital, November 11, a daugh- ter, Jennifer.
The
... ... ... 5...:
Hongkong Telegraph.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1937.
SUCH IS PROGRESS,
Every now and then the people who believe they live in most enlighteried times receive ajur which
self and dozes, and comes to
with a start to find Itself burred every so often. Science latyours and produces such marvels as the flying machine, and the Wright brothers are hailed as the conquerors of space. Man. right away, proceeds to convert
useful device into an instru- ment of destruction; and Christendom gapes at the wrong that has been done, all unwit tingly, by genius, but still calls itself civilised.
IS IT POSSIBLE
TO CREATE LIFE?
Above are two kinds of matter. On the left inanimate crystals, on the right living tissue, but the difference between the live and the dead is not obvious. In this article PROFESSOR C. E. C.E. M. JOAD, impressed by a newly-discovered link between them, makes a suggestion about the
'S life a form of matter?
nature of life.
For example, we know that THERE was the attempt coveries each of which has the
the
vivor will breathe the last human
matter.
the non-
I
most
the atmosphere of this planet
to distinguish be- effect of closing the, gap be The question is of
was once too hot and too moist tween those things which moved tween the living and enormous importance to sustain life. A time will of their own volition (living) living, so that those who muin- awakens them to for our understanding of come when it is too cold and and those which did not (doud); tain a real distinction between the life and mutter seem to be light- realities. Civilisation suns it-
between those which had to dry, the universe and of the
When the heat of the sun is Power to reproduce themselves ing a losing battle. place and status of human no longer suficient to maintain living) and those which had not (dead): between those which the conditions suitable for life, metabolised, that is to say, ab-
NEVERTHELESS,
doubt whether the beings within it.
human beings will have dis-
sorbed nourshment from out complete closing of the gulf For, if it is, then, presumably, apeared from the earth.
side, built it up into the tissues would really prove what life developed out of matter at
of their own bodies and ex- people think it would prove, WHAT is more,
pelled their waste products namely, that life is in fact only some particular stage of the
last representatives (living) and those which did not a form of or emanation. from earth's history as the result of of our race will, we suppose, the operation of purely natural witted as the first, as they find
become as savage and as dull (dead).
All these attempts have prov- For suppose that life enters forces and conditions. If it is. themselves driven to devote all ed unsatisfactory, while with into and animates matter much then, when those forces and their energy and attention. to every fresh advance of science as wireless waves enter into and conditions cease to obt, in, that obtaining food and warmth in the gulf between the so-called animate the set which receives conditions which are increasing- living and the so-called dead them. Suppose, in other words, which Is their product will cease ly hostile to life. One day, pre- grows narrower,
that just as the radio set is a to occur...
sumably the last human sur Within the last month-or-so contrivance for trapping and capturing wireless waves, so breath and our planet, a lifeless has come the news of the re- matter may be a contrivance for cuts globe, will continue to rotate markable properties of
trapping and capturing the cur- pre-endlessly in space bearing what- tobacco virus.
ront of life. What is more, to ever in the way of human
The tabacco virus lies on the adopt a metaphor from electri- capes the whipping and is en admirable-our
marbles, our table and the mineral worlds. may be able to take different- abled to live for a much longer temples, our pictures, our books if you take the juice of a plant potentials of life. Hence the period in gaol? Why should re- |---frozen to its icy surface.... that has been irifected by the discovery that a crystalline en- turned banishees be kept at the
Thus our so-called progress is virus you can isolate from it a tity, such as the tobacco virus essence of was living would mean only that expense of Government in the ultimately a progress to extinc protein body, the
which is a stricture having the life had succeeded in inserting prisons of Hongkong? These
properties of a crystal; in re- itself, as it were, into cracks in two types of miscreants fre-) All these conclusions follow, spect of shape, size and mole- matter which had hitherto been
thought impervious to it. quently are not the sort of per- if life is merely a form of, or a cular weight it is a crystal. sons amenable to that sort of from, matter; also it follows structure. This is important function of, or an emanation
Also it possesses a rigid body
THE point has interest disciplining.
in connection with the that life is not the creation of because a body with a rigid research with which bio- a divine person, is not even the structure has not, one would chemists are engaged in can- The chances are that the con- expression of some purpose at ditions under which they live in the heart of things, but is a substances into itself from out- protoplasm; that is to say, the suppose, the capacity of taking nection with the production of prison are infinitely preferable casual phenomenon that has side itself, or excreting sub- staff of which living organisms cropped up without point of pur stances from itself. This capa, are constructed. Many of the to those of their freedom. The pose in a fundamentally alien city has always been regarded organnic compounds found in chances are that they much pre-universe. fer the relative security which
A little while ago Dickens, wrote of conditions in England
confinement and few
i of the birch, while
the
in such a way that, according viously convicted snatcher achievements appears' to us most border-line between the vege- city, different forms of matter
to authorities, reforms were forced upon the country. The wretched Debtors' Prison system was abolished. . Yet, in Hongkong, and elsewhere in the British Empire, the law is such that a debtor can be gaoled 'un- der certain circumstances.
Becoming more civilised, British people shuddered at the sight of evil-doers in the stocks and at the ducking-pool. But there is one British city whose ordinances still contain a rem- nant of antique brutality: in Victoria, British Columbia, ceri tain offences can still be punished by a few hours in the stocks. There are probably a good many instances of the sur- vival of such old Institutions.
willing to "pay their way" by
"hard labour."
Yes, the surest way of cor- Generally, nowadays, punish-recting petty crime and of dis- couraging potential viciousness
ment is moro refined. The public can no longer cheer and jeer at hangings. No more need evil-doers and wife-beaters suffer at the whipping-post the ignominy of tears., Man's feel- inga, like his skin, have become more sensitive. No doubt this Is all a part of the natural evolu- tion of things, and can be classi- fled as progress. But there is some doubt, still, of the efficacy of the gentler methods of punishment.
For instance: Why should a frat offender purse-snatcher! receive a short sentence of
•
tion.
this
entity
But, if I am right, the pro-
ns a distinctive possession of organisms, or secreted by them, Yet the evidence in favour of living organisms.
such as úréa, sugar and starch, a cell and regular food allows, this view is strong, and grows Nevertheless,
can already be manufactured in- and that they are more than stronger. Not only is life no- which has been isolated in in- à laboratory.
where known to exist except in fected tobacco juice does пр- Hence, it is said, if we could 'association with matter, it parently possess the power of continue the manufacture of seems impossible to erect any reproducing itself.
these organic compounds and clear line of demarcation be- tween so-called living and go- called Inorganic matter.
For, however much you dilute subject them to suitable treat- ment we might produce a mass the infected juice, it still To-
of protoplasm which behaved mains infected, a fact that sug like a living organism, The attempts which have gests that, so long as any of is the discreet use of a birch or been made in the past are ex- these entities remain in it, they Possibly; possibly not. the much-maligned "cat." If a ceedingly numerous. Many can multiply themselves almost school-boy can stand up to a were undertaken in the interests indefinitely. Now the ability caning and still grin, there is no of theology; men wished to be to reproduce themselves is the duction of such a mass of proto- plasm would not. De tantamount lieve that they had souls which property of living organisms. reason why one of these young were immortal, and that in this
to the creation of life. What ruflana who onatch at purses | respect they differed from jelly.
The tobacco virus may be would have happened, would be should not have a dose of the fish, which probably, and rocks, said, then, to possess in an the artificial creation by che- almost equal degree the charac- mists of forms of matter which same medicine: At least the which certainly, had not.
teristics of dead matter and the were capable of taking the cur- authorities might do well to try
Hence they affirmed a radical characteristics of living things, rent of life. the experiment. One feels in- and the scarcely animate world parties are apparently those of structs a house, we don't say difference between themselves Its physical and chemical pro- But just as, when a man con- clined to venture the prediction of jellyfish and the totally inant- dead matter; its power to re- that he has also constructed 'the that it would cut the prison food mate world of rocks. Science, produce itself is that of a living' tenants who come to occupy it, bill and make the streets of however, failed to discover any organism.
so, if life la really distinct from Hongkong safer for the law organ corresponding to the soul, abiding and usually unarmed citizen.
and other means of distinguish- The discovery of the proper- matter, the man who makes so- ing between what was living and ties of the tobacco virus is only called living matter will not have what was dead were sought. the last of a long line of dis- succeeded in creating life itself.