SPONTANEO US GENERA TION. 



435 



the germ-theory and against spontaneous genera- 

 tion, as embodied in the writings of M. Pasteur, 

 did not by any means convince me as to the irre- 

 proachable nature of this evidence, notwithstand- 

 ing all the skill and care with which the experi- 

 ments had evidently been conducted. It was not, 

 indeed, the experiments themselves, so far as they 

 went, with which I was dissatisfied ; but rather 

 that I could not assent to the validity of the in- 

 ferences which M. Pasteur had drawn from them. 

 An experimentalist may be ever so skilled in the 

 art of manipulation, and even of devising new 

 experiments, and yet his judgment may not be 

 faultless, his reasonings in regard to his experi- 

 ments may not be without flaw. It is only by 

 free discussion that truth can be eliminated from 

 error. Yet my temerity in venturing to question 

 the validity of M. Pasteur's inductions and infer- 

 ences has many times been commented upon in 

 terras of severe reprobation by Prof. Tyndall. 



Notwithstanding all this, the fact remains 

 that the cardinal inductions and inferences of M. 

 Pasteur ' — those on which he based his germ- 

 theory, and which were challenged by me in 1870 

 and 1871 — have now (as I have recently shown 

 in vol. xiv. of the Zoological Section of the Jour- 

 nal of the Linncean Society) been finally over- 

 turned. Yet it was on such bases that the germ- 

 theory was also proclaimed by Prof. Huxley, 2 as 

 President of the British Association, in 1870, to 

 be " victorious along the whole line." 



Whether or not M. Pasteur's germ-theory may 

 ultimately be established on other grounds, it is 

 now perfectly obvious that it was not tenable on 

 the grounds alleged in 1870, and that my work, 

 together with that of others who have sought 

 either to confirm or refute me, has proved to 

 demonstration that his original positions were 

 erroneous. This assuredly is worthy of note, as 

 bringing us one long step the nearer to the ulti- 

 mate truth. 



My experiments have from the first met with 

 the most sturdy opposition and denial, a fate not 

 unusually crossing the labors of those who vent- 

 ure to attack popular and deeply-rooted doc- 

 trines. Yet on several notable occasions it has 

 happened that experimenters, who have at first 

 repudiated the reality of my results, have in the 

 end been compelled, however reluctantly, to ac- 

 knowledge their correctness. This was the case, 

 for instance, in regard to the seemingly simple, 

 though very important, question whether a boiled 

 fluid inclosed in a sealed vessel, from which the 



1 Annates de Chitnie et de Physique, t. i., 1862. 



2 Nature, September 15, 1870. 



air had been expelled during the process of ebul- 

 lition, could or could not subsequently ferment 

 and swarm with living organisms. My statement 

 that this would occur was at first again and again 

 denied, on the ground that the process of boiling 

 to which the fluid was subjected would have killed 

 all the organisms and their germs within the nar- 

 row-necked experimental vessel, and that a gen- 

 eration de novo of living matter was not to be 

 thought of. 



My critics did not at that time suggest that 

 the temperature of 212° Fahr. was not adequate 

 to kill all preexisting organisms and their germs 

 in fluids : this was taken for granted ; and accord- 

 ingly they roundly stated that I had grossly de- 

 ceived myself in supposing that living organisms 

 had appeared under such circumstances. A cou- 

 ple of quotations from important reviews by well- 

 known men of science will afford an index of the 

 extent to which this opinion prevailed among 

 men of science in this country. 



In an adverse review of my then recently- 

 published work, "The Beginnings of Life," which 

 appeared in the Academy of November 1, 1872, 

 signed by H. N. Moseley, who has since greatly 

 distinguished himself by his investigations as one 

 of the naturalists of the Challenger Expedition, 

 the reader may find the following passage: 



" Dr. Bastian seals the flasks with which he is 

 experimenting during ebullition of the contained 

 fluid, and by this means, when the apparatus has 

 become cool, a partial vacuum is formed in the 

 vessel. Experiments were made in this way with 

 hay and turnip infusions, in which every possible 

 precaution appears to have been taken to exclude 

 or destroy germs. In nearly all cases, after the 

 lapse of some time, the solutions became turbid, 

 or exhibited a scum, and microscopic examination 

 showed the existence of organic bodies in the 

 fluids, and in some cases of bacteria in active 

 motion. 



" Now the only possible answer to be made to 

 experiments such as these is that the turbidity or 

 scum in the solutions was not caused by a develop- 

 ment of organisms, but by some coagulation or 

 similar alteration in the fluid, and that the bodies 

 seen in the solutions were not living, but dead, 

 and had been there all the time. . . . 



" Considering, on the one hand, the a priori 

 improbability of the formation of bacteria, etc., de 

 novo, with the great weight and high value of the 

 evidence already adduced against its occurrence, 

 and estimating, on the other, the value of the evi- 

 dence here put forth, it seems very unlikely that 

 Dr. Bastian's results will be confirmed." 



Two months later, on the 1st of January, 



