274 the president's address. 



organisms produced are of well-known types, and one of the 

 moulds formed appears to be a Peniciliium producing spores 

 in the ordinary way. I must confess that I myself find it 

 impossible to believe without much stronger evidence that such 

 comparatively highly organised beings can have been evolved so 

 rapidly from ultra- microscopic germs. We are accustomed to 

 think of evolution as a very slow and gradual process, and we 

 know that Bacteria, Torulae and moulds may be cultivated for 

 an indefinite period without undergoing any recognisable change ; 

 indeed many industries, such as brewing, wine-making and 

 cheese-making, depend for their very existence upon this 

 fact. May we suppose that all these organisms have reached 

 the limits of their evolution? If so we have the answer to 

 the question, why have they remained stationary while other 

 organisms have developed into the higher forms of plants and 

 animals ? If, however, we are asked to believe that the Bacteria 

 and Torulae are stages in the evolution of the moulds, why does 

 not this transformation manifest itself in our everyday experience ? 

 Dr. Bastian himself, it should be observed, is a convinced 

 upholder of the doctrine of heterogenesis, or the sudden appear- 

 ance of one kind of organism as the offspring of another, but 

 it may be doubted whether any other living biologist holds similar 

 views. 



Again, are we to believe that such organisms arise in nature 

 under many different conditions and from many different 

 mixtures of chemical compounds, or are we to believe that 

 Dr. Bastian has accidentally, and almost at the first attempt, 

 hit upon just the right materials and the right conditions for the 

 production of well-known living things 1 His own observations, 

 if correct, show that the experimental solutions may be varied 

 within wide limits, but this is hardly what we should expect if 

 the origin of living things is to be regarded as a mere stage in a 

 series of chemical and physical processes. Another criticism 

 of these results may be based upon the fact that the materials 

 employed do not (unless accidentally) contain all the necessary 

 ingredients of protoplasm. Carbon is apparently entirely 

 wanting, and we must either suppose that it is accidentally 

 present in minute but sufficient quantities as an impurity, or 

 else that it can, as Dr. Bastian actually suggests, be replaced, 

 to a greater or less extent, by silica in his organisms. It has 



