“Autogenesis”
1929
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
The collection of works by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, translated into English
Many people do not believe in autogenesis on planets on the grounds that this autogenesis is not observed on Earth in experiments and in nature.
I will try to convince such people otherwise.
Do we see everything on Earth? Every day new species of animals, plants, bacteria and minerals are discovered. It is especially difficult to observe the microscopic world, and all over the Earth’s surface, at all depths and heights.
Is what we cannot do now impossible in the future? Before, it was considered impossible to obtain organic substances derived from plants and animals.
Now this is being disproved more and more. Organic fragrances, paints, oils, sugars in countless varieties beyond nature have been obtained.
Going thus, shall we reach living organic substances, the creation of protoplasm, the cells of plants and animals?
How long ago the possibility of developing an egg (the germ cell of an animal) without natural fertilization was discovered!
Airplanes, radio, talking machine, steamboat, steam engine, steam locomotive, sewing machine and an infinite number of other implements that are now used by man were considered impossible at one time. The field of his creativity cannot be limited.
If it were impossible to create artificially a living thing, it would be impossible to destroy it.
Arrhenius, Thomson, and others believe that it is possible to transfer life from other planets to the earth. It follows, then, that they allow autogenesis on other planets which are no different from the Earth. And if it is possible on planets, why is it impossible on the Earth?
But I proved that this transfer is inconceivable. Hence, we must necessarily allow this self-begetting on the Earth, otherwise we cannot explain the appearance of life on our planet.
I also proved that the transfer of life is possible by the technique of higher beings like man. But then these beings, their high civilization, technical perfection, constructions of all kinds would have appeared on the Earth. If all this were ever destroyed by hostile nature, by some catastrophe, such as a great earthquake, a comet, the fall of a great bolide, etc., there could still be fossil traces of a higher culture, which we do not, however, see.
We found traces of worms, insects. How could we not find traces of a higher man!
So, again, it is inevitable to allow autogenesis (autogony).
“The living from the living.” From the dead we have never received the living. So far this is irrefutable, but for ever! Nature, too, as it were, nowhere produces from a mixture of materials a single creature.
But let us suppose that she has produced somewhere invisibly from us the rudiments of life. It is asked, could they have survived and continued their phylogenetic development (evolution)?
The lower nationalities die out at contact with the higher ones. Thus, Indians, New Zealanders and many other weak races almost died out. The cruelty of Europeans is partly to blame. But let there be a merciful and just attitude to them, and yet they are destined sooner or later, having served mankind, to disappear (or to dissolve into more perfect races). The degree of labor power, resistance to disease, etc. will give victory to the higher races, for the latter will multiply greatly and die out more slowly.
As long as apes exist. But they too will disappear when men multiply and occupy the earth they inhabit.
Without the superior races, the inferior races would play a role, and the apes would reach the development of man. But competition would blow them off the face of the earth for their own good. Few of the present humans would leave offspring, as they would be replaced by the offspring of the highest members of the Earth.
Many lower animals would have evolved and would have had a great future if it had not been for the competition of the higher animals. On the lower rungs of the animal ladder, however, there is no ceremony. There the weakest are simply devoured. (We hope that nothing of the sort will happen in the attitude of strong cultures to the weak, even to animals. And now there is propaganda about mercy for animals.)
In the same way the first rudiments of gentle life in the form of the simplest living organic compounds cannot at present withstand the competition of existing more advanced bacteria and other creatures.
Without them, it would be a different matter. The rudiments of life could develop, give multicellular and higher beings up to man and beyond. But there are no opportunities for them: they are immediately wiped out by the surrounding ready-made and comparatively perfect life, which has many millions of years of existence behind it. Where is there to fight it!
So the development of higher forms of life, for example, in relation to man, requires special isolation and great care for it, which people, unfortunately, do not know. That is why man has so little progress in body and mind so far.
Let us digress a little to the side. The question involuntarily arises: is it profitable for mankind to breed the higher breeds and mercifully eliminate the lower ones? I will ask you what a vegetable grower who wants to feed himself should do: whether to breed vegetables from their seeds or to wait for algae to develop from bacteria, mosses from algae, ferns from mosses, meadow grasses from the latter, bad vegetables from weeds and good vegetables from the latter. Would he not have had to wait millions of years for carrots, beets, cabbage, potatoes, etc.? The answer is clear. We should do the same.
Animal and imperfect human reproduction is still necessary, and even increased reproduction is necessary. It is impossible to possess the Earth without overpopulating it. But the fuller the population of the Earth becomes, the stricter will be the selection of the best, the stronger their reproduction and the weaker the reproduction of the laggards. In the end the latter will disappear for their own good, as they will incarnate in perfect forms.
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