14 THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



ciety of London. 1 This was accordingly done 

 early in October, 1910. The paper seemed to me 

 to contain so much evidence of painstaking work 

 that, when coupled with the nature and import- 

 ance of the results which it chronicled, I certainly 

 never anticipated receiving, as I did a few weeks 

 later, an official letter saying that the paper " had 

 been under consideration, and that it was not 

 considered suitable for acceptance by the Society." 



This was the bald statement made, and, as usual, 

 not a word of explanation! Its rejection could 

 not be owing to the nature of the subject dealt 

 with, since two long papers by Professor Tyndall 

 had been accepted and published by the Society 

 several years ago, as well as others by Sir William 

 Roberts. 



One can only conclude, therefore, that now, as 

 at that time, when another paper of mine was 

 similarly declined and was deposited in the archives 

 of the Society, it is the kind of conclusion that 



1 Four of my communications to the Royal Society from 1876 

 onwards had not been accepted; and of a fifth, a long memoir 

 on some very important instances of Heterogenesis, an illus- 

 trated abstract only was allowed to appear, with a modified 

 title which now stands as follows. " On the Occurrence of cer- 

 tain Ciliated Infusoria within the Eggs of a Rotifer, considered 

 from the point of view of Heterogenesis." (See Proceedings of 

 Royal Society, B, vol. 76, 1905, p. 385.) 



