Explaining the Mystery of Life
By Editor
The researches and experiments of Prof. Jacques Loeb, of Chicago University, in the investigation of the phenomena of nerve action and of the development and arrest of the vital processes, are being hailed as a revelation “into the inmost secrets of life, mind, and death.” Dr. Loeb has experimented upon frogs’ legs and upon the sea urchin and other lower forms of animal life, and finds that the beat of the heart may be started or stopped by the presence or absence of a small quantity of certain salts, and that the atoms, or “ions,” of the salts act by means of electricity; so that the ultimate cause of nerve action and of muscular activity is electricity. He produced growth in the unfertilized eggs of the sea urchin by immersing them in a solution of chloride of magnesium; or, by placing them in a solution of cyanide of potassium, they were preserved from decay, which quickly overtakes them under normal conditions. As the unfertilized egg is not strictly living matter, but can be made to grow like fertilized eggs in an aquarium by the means before mentioned, the claim is made that the long-cherished dream of the production of life in the chemist’s laboratory is near to, if it has not actually reached, realization, and that the artificial production of living beings will soon be possible. And on the other hand, it is claimed that death is the result of a specific process which may be arrested by certain chemical agencies, as it was in the case of the sea urchin’s eggs; and that thus life may be indefinitely prolonged. We speak of this because of the evident effect of such claims, seemingly supported as they are by science, which must be to stimulate pride in the human heart, and correspondingly lessen — in many cases destroy altogether — man’s sense of dependence upon His Creator. Man now assumes to be upon the verge of becoming a creator of life himself. He assumes to be about to look into and comprehend the mysteries of existence hitherto reserved to the mind of the Omniscient, and extend his term of life indefinitely beyond the boundary line of “threescore years and ten,” allowed if not maintained by Providence, and to do this not by any divine aid, but by the resources of his own mind. What else but a sense of independence of God can be fostered by such ideas? Verily, the present age is not one favorable to the development of Christian faith. This the Saviour foresaw when He said, “When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?”