30 THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



ing knowledge. 1 This belief has, during the last 

 four years, been notably strengthened by the re- 

 sults of experiments, many times repeated, made 

 with inorganic materials, and now to be further 

 referred to. 



I was not deterred from making attempts in 

 this direction by the discouraging remarks of 

 Weismann in the passage following that which I 

 have already quoted, where we find him saying 

 (p. 367) : 



Up till now, all attempts to discover these condi- 

 tions have been futile; and I do not believe that they 

 will ever be successful not because the conditions 

 must be so peculiar in nature that we cannot repro- 

 duce them, but, above all, because we should not be 

 able to perceive the results of a successful experiment. 



This latter remarkable statement he then en- 

 deavours to support by reason of the assumed 

 incompatibility of the de novo origin of a simple 

 living unit, such as a Bacterium or a Torula, with 

 his own well-known theories. 



Altogether apart from theories, however, wher 



1 See a memoir " On the Conditions Favouring Fermentation, 

 and the Appearance of Bacilli, Micrococci, and Torulae in Pre- 

 viously Boiled Fluids," Linnean Society's Journal (Zoology), 

 vol. xiv., 1877. 



