Abstract
No doubt “Geologist” points out a literal flaw in my statement, but I thought it would be obvious that by the “potentiality of life,” which would be destroyed by heat, I meant potentiality of life, appearing within the time of the experiment. Given countless ages, then, on the evolution hypothesis, the potentiality of life, as of the rest of nature as we know it, existed in the fluid mass of the uncooled earth, and I did not mean to say anything inconsistent with this. Nor, on the other hand, did I mean to say that by the heat applied the potentiality of life in the matter under test would be destroyed for all time. I meant potentiality of appearing within a given time, the time of the experiment, and I cannot help thinking this was the natural sense of my words.
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HOOKHAM, G. The Origin of Life. Nature 71, 101 (1904). https://doi.org/10.1038/071101c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/071101c0
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