SPONTANEOUS GENERATION : A LAST WORD. 



505 



SPONTANEOUS GENERATION : A LAST WORD. 



Br Professor TYNDALL. 



THE results of some years of labor, on my 

 part, in connection with the subject of spon- 

 taneous generation are set forth in the two me- 

 moirs published in the " Philosophical Transac- 

 tions of the Royal Society " for 1876 and 1877. 

 But by conversation and correspondence with 

 various physicians and surgeons of eminence I 

 was made aware that the further exposition and 

 elucidation of two or three leading points was 

 desirable, and to this task I addressed myself in 

 the January number of this review. This has 

 drawn forth in the February number a "reply," 

 in which it is intimated that my article deals in 

 " denunciation." Of that the reader will judge 

 for himself, my desire being that demonstration, 

 rather than denunciation, should form the staple 

 of the article. I am also spoken of as comment- 

 ing in terms of severe reprobation on the writer's 

 temerity in differing from M. Pasteur. On this 

 point I take the opportunity of remarking that 

 had the " temerity " referred to been the outcome 

 of true courage, and fidelity to scientific convic- 

 tion, I should have been the first to applaud the 

 writer's dissent from Pasteur, Huxley, and the 

 other able men with whom he has come into col- 

 lision; but I could not applaud the turning of 

 a momentous discussion into a mere dialectic 

 wrangle, nor could I approve of the systematic 

 abandonment of that courtesy of language which 

 befits the neophyte in the presence of the master. 

 Science, as a moral agent, is affected by the 

 spirit in which it is pursued, and the man who, 

 at the entrance of his career, discharges from his 

 mind all reverence for those whose reputations 

 have been established by the successful disci- 

 plines of laborious lives, is not likely to win ap- 

 plause from me. 



To justice, however, my respondent is entitled, 

 and I begin these remarks by an act of justice 

 toward him. He complains that I speak of the 

 vital resistance of the seeds of Medicago as if he 

 had not been aware of the fact, and points out, to 

 use his own words, that "the facts newly dis- 

 covered by Prof. Tyndall, which were to invali- 

 date my views, were, with others, nearly five years 

 ago, referred to by me." I turn to vol. i., page 

 314, of his " Beginnings of Life," and there, it 

 must be admitted, is a reference to Pouchet's 

 experiment. The observation referred to aston- 



ished Pouchet himself. At first he would not 

 believe the statements of those who informed 

 him that the seeds of Medicago could resist four 

 hours' boiling. " Ce fait extraordinaire etait telle- 

 ment en opposition avec ce que professent les 

 physiologistes les plus emiuents de notre epoque, 

 que je n'y pouvais croire." Spallanzani had dis- 

 tinctly declared that vegetable seeds were de- 

 stroyed by boiling water, those with the hardest 

 integuments not excepted. But Pouchet made 

 the experiment for himself, and in twenty different 

 repetitions of it found that some of the seeds ger- 

 minated after four hours' boiling. " Les senten- 

 ces," he says, " de ce medicago du Bresil re- 

 sistaient a une ebullition de quatre heures de 

 duree. Ou cela s'arrete-t-il? Je n'en sais rien, 

 n'ayant pas experimente an dela." 



This observation, which excited great atten- 

 tion at the time, which afterward formed the 

 subject of discussions in the Academy, and which 

 certainly is the most important observation of the 

 kind ever made, is briefly spoken of in a foot- 

 note on the page above referred to. I had read 

 the note and forgotten it, my lapse of memory 

 being confirmed by the fact that in my respon- 

 dent's later volume, " Evolution, or the Origin of 

 Life," where he treats very fully of " the destruc- 

 tive influence of heat upon living matter," the 

 observation of Pouchet is not, to my knowledge, 

 once mentioned. 



My respondent refers to Mr. Moseley in the 

 Academy, and to Prof. Huxley at Liverpool, as 

 enunciating views which were afterward "abun- 

 dantly refuted " both in this country and on 

 the Continent. Notwithstanding such refutation, 

 " Prof. Tyndall," continues my respondent — 



" three years later— that is, early in 1876— at- 

 tempted to deny that such experimental results as 

 mine could be legitimately obtained, and sought to 

 convince the Royal Society and a crowded audi- 

 ence at the Royal Institution that I had fallen into 

 error, and that no such results could be obtained 

 by a skilled experimentalist like himself. In evi- 

 dence of this he brought forward a ' cloud of wit- 

 nesses,' all of which, if rightly interpreted, gave 

 very different testimony from that which Prof. 

 Tyndall imagined. But while he at first strenu- 

 ously denied my facts, he is now only able to de- 

 mur to my interpretation." 



