Historical Views
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Most theories on the origin of life have four categories they fall into:
1. Life has no origin. (both life and matter have existed forever.)
2. Life is the result of a supernatural event, unexplainable by science.
3. Life originated through ordinary chemical evolution.
4. Life originated somewhere else by means that are unknown.
Anaxagoras of Clazomenae was possibly the first one to suggest that "the seeds of life permeated the universe."
This theory was sponsored by many 19th century scientists/researchers.
Aristotle said life is,"the assemblage of the operations of nutrition,growth,and destruction."
Fracois-xavier bichat said life was "organization in action."
Herbert Spencer stated, "life is the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations."
Jean-baptiste Lamarck proposed that various species had not been created in their current forms all at once but had evolved through time by natural proceses. He also embraced the princeple of spontaneous generation proposed by Aristotle.
William Benjamin Carpenter rejected spontaneous generation and argued nonliving matter can never organize its self into living matter. That is, except through the agency of other living matter.
"Carpenter's arguments seemed to prove an absolute, unearasable divide between the living and non living worlds, leaving no alternative but a supernatural
