Turning to the question of the source of life, Professor
Schafer enumerated the elements which when combined into a colloidal compound represented the chemical basis of life, and declared that when chemistry succeeds in building up this compound it will without doubt be found to exhibit the phenomena which we are in the habit of associating with the term "life." Dismissing the theory of the spontaneous generation of fully formed living organisms, Professor Schafer observed that our mistrust of the evidence brought forward in support of this view need not preclude us from admitting the possibility of the formation of living from non- living substance. He set aside, as devoid of scientific founda- tion, the idea of immediate supernatural intervention in the first production of life, but declared that we were "not only justified in believing, but compelled to believe, that living matter must have owed its origin to causes similar in character to those which have been instrumental in producing all other forms -of matter in the universe; in other words, to a process of gradual evolution."
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