244 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



suitable, because they convey notions absolutely irrecon- 

 cilable with the later development of knowledge on 

 the subject, or because they are too vague and general. 

 Hence it is that the phrase c spontaneous generation ' 

 should be rejected in the present day. The phenomena 

 hitherto referred to under this name are no more 

 c spontaneous ' than are any others which take place 

 in accordance with natural laws. The phrase is, more- 

 over, utterly inadequate, since under it, if retained, 

 we should have to include two sets of phenomena at 

 least, which, in the present day, ought to be carefully 

 discriminated from one another. 



This discrimination has, however, been attempted 

 only by a few writers. Many who have written on 

 the subject of c spontaneous generation ' have failed to 

 appreciate the full extent of the difference which exists 

 between the origin of living things from not-living 

 materials (Archebiosis), and their origin in whatever 

 fashion whether by modes which are familiar, or by 

 others which are unfamiliar from the substance of a 

 pre-existing living thing. This difference, which is so 

 little dwelt upon by some, assumes in the minds of 

 others an overwhelming importance they might be 

 open to conviction as to the possibility of living things 

 arising by previously unknown methods from the matter 

 of pre-existing living things, whilst they would regard 

 the origin of living things from not-living materials to 

 be altogether impossible. In the first set of cases, how- 

 ever bizarre the mode of generation might be, there 



