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from which Miller brewed up his primitive soup in his laboratory experiments. Owing to the original high temperatures of the earth and its weak gravity, light gases such as helium and free hydrogen were lost in the cosmos, while the heavy gas molecules such as nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and also the heavier 'noble' gas atoms were retained. Hydrogen in its free state, its elementary form, is now virtually nonexistent in our atmosphere; it is only found in chemical combinations. For example, two atoms of hydrogen together with one atom of oxygen form a molecule of the essential compound water (chemical symbol: H20). The cycle got under way. Water evaporated and rose with the warm radiation from the earth in clouds of vapour which cooled off at great heights and poured down as rain. This primitive rain freed many kinds of inorganic matter from the hot stone crust and swept them into the ocean. Inorganic compounds such as ammonia and cyanide of hydrogen from the atmosphere also dissolved in the primitive ocean and took part in chemical reactions. For millions of years the earth's atmosphere grew richer in oxygen. This development took place slowly. Today science is unanimous in saying that the transformation of the original atmosphere into our oxidising atmosphere took about 1.2 milliard years. At the beginning of this development was the primitive soup, which, with its numerous forms of matter in solution, was a first-class culture medium for the first primitive forms of life. It is said that life is always connected with an organism, in the simplest case with the organism's cell. The fact that an organism lives is proved by its metabolism, and also shows in its development. Functions constitute life. Are all these currently accepted criteria necessarily correct? If they are, a virus does not live. A virus itself undergoes no change of matter and energy; it does not eat nor does it excrete. It only multiplies inside foreign cells by reproduction. It is a parasite. If we follow the path of the origin of life in its main stages, the vital question is: whence the first living cell? Theodor Schwann (1810-1882) and Matthias Schleiden (1804-1881) carried out the fundamental research. Schwann proved that animals and plants are made up of cells; Schleiden recognised the importance of the nucleus. Then the Augustine prior Gregor Johann Mendel (1822- 1884), who taught natural history and physics at Brim, made his cross-breeding experiments with peas and beans. This progressive priest discovered three laws of heredity with his patient experiments and became the founder of the science of heredity. Today his laws are unanimously accepted as governing About the middle of the nineteenth century it was proved that the cell is the carrier of all vital functions. This proof became the basis for all the big biological discoveries. Now new techniques (Rontgenology, electrophoresis, ultra-microscopy, phase-contrast microscopy, etc.) enable us to examine cells and nuclei. What then is life? Shall we ever be able to define it? men, animals and plants. We suspect that the information centres for the storing and transmission of hereditary factors are in