Chance or Vitalism

Abstract

PROF. JAPP's exceedingly interesting address on “Stereochemistry and Vitalism” contains a direct challenge to those who, like myself, hold that we can at present only remain agnostic with regard to the problem of “the possibility or impossibility of living matter originating from dead matter by a purely mechanical process.” Unfortunately the facts upon which he bases his view, that chemical compounds of one-sided asymmetry cannot arise save under the influence of life, touch a field so much more familiar to him than to me, that it may seem presumption on my part to make one or two suggestions drawn more directly from my own sphere of work. Still, to the philosophical side of his reasoning I think Clifford, whom he challenges, might, perhaps, have been ready with some reply. I would first state what, I think, stripped of technical language, and represented by the simplest case, is Prof. Japp's standpoint: