ORIGIN OF LOWEST ORGANISMS. 



organisms, we cannot possibly say, from direct ob- 

 servation, that every organism which exists has had 

 a similar mode of origin, because the cases in which 

 organisms may have originated de novo are the very 

 cases in which their mode of origin must elude our 

 actual observation. Such a statement, too, would be 

 all the more dangerous, in the face of the other 

 analogy, when it can actually be shown that some 

 organisms do make their appearance in fluids after 

 precisely the same fashion as crystals. 



Although, therefore, there is a contradiction between 



O ' 



the unwarrantable and ill-begotten formula, " omne 

 vivum ex vivo!' and the doctrines of what has been 

 called " Spontaneous Generation"; there is no con- 

 tradiction whatever between such doctrines and the 

 only generalization which we are really warranted 

 in arriving at, to the effect that some representatives 

 of every kind of organism are capable of reproducing 

 similar organisms. 



Bacteria, Torula, or other living things which may 

 have been evolved de novo, when so evolved, multiply 

 and reproduce just as freely as organisms that have 

 been derived from parents. 



The views as to the origin of Bacteria and Torula 

 which are most worthy of attention, may be thus 

 enumerated : 



a. That they are independent organisms derived by 

 fission or gemmation from pre-existing Bacteria and 

 Tc rules, 



B 2 



