It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present which could ever have been present.

But if (& oh what a big if) we could conceive in some warm little pond with all sorts and ammonia and phosphoric salts, - light, heat, electricity etc., present, that a protein compound was chemically formed, ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured, or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed.

Charles Darwin, Letter no. 7471