1937-11-12 — Page 18

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1937.

WATSON'S

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Combining the Fragrance of Old English Lavender with. mild antiseptic and absor- bent qualities in Improved

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"SCHIRMER" "PETERS"

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BIRTH

SPRAGUE-Born to Mr. and Mrs. W. Sprague, at Queen Mary Hospital, November 11, a daugh- ter, Jennifer.

The

Hongkong Telegraphı.

FRIDAY, NOVEMUR 12, 1937.

SUCH IS PROGRESS

Every now and then the people who believe they live in: most enlightened times receive;

IS IT POSSIBLE

I

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. M. JOAD, impressed by a newly-discovered link between them, makes a suggestion about the nature of life.

a jar which awakens them to for our understanding of

"RICORDI” “CARL FISCHER" realities. Civilisation suns it-

“DURAND et CIE"

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Adolph Zukor presenti

!

Bing and Martha in a show that's twice as good

as Waikiki Wedding"!

BING CROSBY MARTHA RAYE

"DOUBLE OR

A Paramount,

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ANDY DEVINE • MARY CARLISLE William Frawley fay Holden, Samvel S. Hinds William Henry Directed by Theodore Read

Hear Bing double on the high voirs with "All You Want to Do in Dance", "It's the Natural Thing to Do", "The Moon Got in My Eyes" See Martha awing "It's On. 10x Offen COMMENCING" TO-MORROW

at the

ALHAMBRA

self and dozes, and comes to

to dry.

to

be-

'S life a form of matter? For example, we know that

THERE was the attempt coveries each of which has the the atmosphere of this planet

distinguish be- effect of closing the gap The question is of was once too hot and too moist tween those things which moved tween the living and the non- enormous importance to sustain life. A time will of their own volition (living) living, so that those who main- come when it is too cold and and those which did not (dead); tain a real distinction between between those which had the life and matter seem to be fight- When the heat of the sun is power to reproduce themselves ing a losing battle. no longer sufficient to maintain living) and those which had not the conditions suitable for life, metabolised, that is to say, ab- (dead); between those which human beings will have

dis- For, if it is, then, presumably, upeared from the earth. life developed out of matter at

the universe and of the place and status of human beings within it.

with a start to find itself burned

NEVERTHELESS, every so often. Science labours

doubt whether the

and produces such marvels as

sorbed nourshment from out- complete closing of the gulf side, built it up into the tissues would really prove what most the flying machine, and the

own bodies and ex- people think it would prove, more, the of their WHAT is Wright brothers are hailed as

pelled their some particular stage of the

waste products namely, that life is in fact only last representatives the conquerors of space. Man,

earth's history as the result of of our race will, we suppose, (living) and those which did not a form of or emanation from right away, proceeds to convert

the operation of purely natural become as savage and

as dull (dead). a useful device into an instru- forces and conditions. If it is, themselves driven to devote all ed unsatisfactory, while with into and animates mattor much witted as the first, as they find All these attempts have prov- For suppose that life enters

ment of destruction; and then, when those forces and their energy and attention to every fresh advance of science as wireless waves enter into and Christendom gapes at the wrong conditions cease to obtain, that obtaining food and warmth in the gulf between the so-called animate the set which receives that has been done, all unwit-which is their product will cease ly hostile to life. One day," pre-grows-narrower."'-

conditions which are increasing living and the so-called dead them. Suppose, in other words, tingly, by genius, but still calls

sumably, the last human sur- itself civilised.

to occur.

vivor will breathe the last human Within the last month

matter.

that just an-the- radio-set-is-n- contrivance for trapping and

or so capturing wireless waves, 80

the re-

A little while ago Dickens confinement and

breath and our planet, a lifeless has come the news of 2 few cuts globe, will continue to rotate markable properties of the matter may be a contrivance for trapping and capturing the cur- wrote of conditions in England of the birch, while ย

pre-endlessly in space bearing what- tobacco virus.

rent of life. What is more, to in such a way that, according viously convicted snatcher es-

ever in the way of human

The tabacco virus lies on the, adopt a metaphor from electri- to authorities, reforms

achievements appears to us most border-line between the vege city, different forms of matter- capes the whipping and is en- were

admirable-our marbles, our table and the mineral worlds. may be able to take different. forced upon the country. The 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 wretched Debtors' Prison period in gaol? Why should re-frozen to its icy surface.... that has been infected by the discovery that a crystalline en- system was abolished. Yet, in turned banishees be kept at the Thus our so-called progress is Hongkong, and elsewhere in the expense of Government in the ultimately a progress to extine

prisons of Hongkong?

These tion.

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, cer- 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.

ment

Generally, nowadays, punish

is more refined. The public can no longer cheer and

two

types of miscreants fre- quently are not the sort of per- sons amenable to that sort of disciplining.

virus you can isolate from it a tity, such as the tobacco virus protein body, the essence of was living would mean only that which is a stricture having the life had succeeded in inserting properties of a crystal; in re- itself, as it were, into cracks in All these conclusions follow, spect of shape, size and mole- matter which had hitherto been

thought impervious to it. if life is merely a form of, or a cular weight it is a crystal. from, matter; also it follows structure. This is important function of, or an emanation Also it possesses a rigid body

THE point has interest in connection with the that life is not the creation of because a body with a rigid research with which blo- 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 suppose, the capacity of taking nection with the production of ditions under which they live in the heart of things, but is a substances into itself from out- protoplasm; that is to say, the prison are infinitely preferable casual phenomenon that has side itself, or excreting sub- stuff of which living organisms to those of their freedom. The pose in a fundamentally

I cropped up without point of pur- stances from itself. This capa- are constructed. Many of the chances are that they much pre- universe.

city has always been regarded organnic compounds found in as a distinctive possession of organisms, or secreted by them, fer the relative security which

Yet the evidence in favour of living organisms.

such as urea, sugar and starch, a cell and regular food allows, this view is strong, and grows Nevertheless, this entity can already be manufactured in and that they are more than stronger. Not only is life no- which has been isolated in in- a laboratory. willing to "pay their way" by where known to exist except in fected tobacco juice does ap- Hence, it is said, if we could

hard labour.”

association with matter, it parently possess the power of continue the manufacture of seems impossible to erect any reproducing itself.

these organic compounds clear line of demarcation be Yes, the surest way of cor- tween so-called living and so- recting petty crime and of dis- called inorganic matter.

For, however much you dilute subject them to suitable treat

ment we might produce a mass the infected julce, it still

re of protoplasm which behaved couraging potential viclousness

mains infected, a fact that sug-

alien

and

But, if I am right, the pro- duction of such a mass of proto- plasm would not be tantamount to the creation of life. What

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 attempts which. have gests that, so long as any of like a living organism. icer at hanginga. No more

the much-maligned "cat." If a ceedingly numerous. Many can multiply themselves almost need evil-doers and wife-boaters school-boy can stand up to a were undertaken in the interests indefinitely. Now the ability suffer at the whiping-post the caning and still grin, there is no of theology: men wished to be to reproduce themselves is the ignominy of tears. Man's feel-

love that they had souls which property of living organisms. reason why one of these young were immortal, and that in this ings, like his akin, have become ruffians who snatch at purses respect they differed from jelly. The tobacco virus may be would have happened would be more sensitive. No doubt this

should not have a dose of the fah, which probably, and rocks, said, then, to possess in an the artificial creation by che- is all a part of the natural evolu-

same medicine. At least the which certainly, had not.

almost equal degree the charac- mists of forms of matter which teristics of dead matter and the were capable of taking the cur- tion of things, and can be classi-

authorities might do well to try

Hence they affirmed a radical characteristics of living things. rent of life. fled as progress. But there is the experiment. One feels in- and the scarcely animate world parties are apparently those of structs a house, we don't any

difference between themselves Its physical and chemical pro- some doubt, still, of the efficacyclined to venture the prediction of jellyfish and the totally Inant- dead matter: its power to re- that he has also constructed the But just as, when a man con- of the gentler methods of

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, punishment.

the streets of however, failed to discover any organism.

so, if life is really distinct from · For instance: Why should a

Hongkong safer for the law-organ corresponding to the soul,

and other means of distinguish- The discovery of the proper- matter, the man who makes so- first

offender purse-snatcher abiding and usually unarmed ing between what was living and ties of the tobacco virus is only called living matter will not have recoivo, a short sentence of citizen.

i what was dead were sought. the last of a long line of dis- succeeded in creating life itself.

4

bill and make