This book was written in 1937 by Professor A. I. Oparin, Associate Director of the Biochemical Institute of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Science and, although today's science is far advanced beyond that period, it offers insights into the early investigations of what would today be called molecular evolution. A full sixteen years before Stanley Miller's famous discharge experiments of 1953, chemists and biologists were already investigating assorted prebiotic pathways and chemical reactions that could produce complex organic molecules like those associated with life.