VIRCHOW ON THE TEACHING OF SCIENCE. 



83 



substance, I cannot imagine any .evidence on 

 which it might be securely founded. But there 

 can be no doubt that all the forms of living mat- 

 ter are enormously complex in chemical consti- 

 tution. Now, there may, of course, be half-way 

 houses, less complex forms, out of which they 

 may be built up, just as acetylene forms a half- 

 way house to benzine. Still, the coincidence in- 

 volved in the formation of a molecule so complex 

 as to be called living, must be, so far as we can 

 make out, a very elaborate coincidence. How 

 often does it happen in a cubic mile of sea-water ? 

 Perhaps once a week ; perhaps once in many 

 centuries ; perhaps, also, many million times a 

 day. From this living molecule to a speck of 

 protoplasm visible in the microscope is a very far 

 cry ; involving, it may be, a thousand years or so 

 of evolution. Possibly, however, the molecule 

 has from the beginning that power which belongs 

 to other chemical bodies, and certainly to itself 

 when existing in sensible masses, of assisting the 

 formation of its like. Once started, however, 

 there it is; the spontaneous generation, believed 

 in as a possibility by the evolutionist, has taken 

 place. 



Why, then, do the experiments all " go 

 against " spontaneous generation ? What the 

 experiments really prove is, that the coincidence 

 which would form a Bacterium — already a definite 

 structure reproducing its like — does not occur in 

 a test-tube during the periods yet observed. Such 

 a coincidence is the nearest thing to a " special 

 creation " that can be distinctly conceived. The 

 experiments have nothing whatever to say to the 

 production of enormously simpler forms, in the 

 vast range of the ocean, during the ages of the 

 earth's existence. 



Allowing that this makes the thing possible, 

 does it give any reason for believing that it has 

 actually taken place? We might get a direct 

 demonstration if we knew the constitution of 

 proteine, and could calculate the chances of the 

 coincidence which would lead to its formation in 

 the sea. But, on the other hand, we have an ar- 

 gument precisely like that which we used in the 

 case of the descent of man. We know from phys- 

 ical reasons that the earth was once in a liquid 

 state from excessive heat. Then there could have 

 been no living matter upon it. Now there is. 

 Consequently, non-living matter has been turned 

 into living matter somehoio. We can only get out 

 of spontaneous generation by the supposition 

 made by Sir W. Thomson, in jest or earnest, that 

 some piece of living matter came to the earth 

 from outside, perhaps with a meteorite. I wish 



to treat all hypotheses with respect, and to have 

 no preferences which are not entirely founded on 

 reason ; and yet, whenever I contemplate this 



"... simpler protoplastic shape 

 Which came down iu a fire-escape" — 



an internal monitor, of which I can give no 

 rational account, invariably whispers, " Fiddle- 

 sticks ! " 



I think, however, that the nature of the evi- 

 dence which makes spontaneous generation prob- 

 able is such that we cannot teach it in schools 

 except to very advanced pupils. And the same 

 thing may be said of the doctrine of evolution as 

 a whole, regarded as involving the nebular hy- 

 pothesis. 



" Those who hold (says Tyndall) the doctrine 

 of evolution are by no means ignorant of the uncer- 

 tainty of their data, and they only yield to it a 

 provisional assent. They regard the nebular hy- 

 pothesis as probable, and, in the utter absence of 

 any proof of the illegality of the act, they prolong 

 the method of Nature from the present into the 

 past. Here the observed uniformity of Nature is 

 their only guide. Having determined the elements 

 of their curve in a world of observation and exper- 

 iment, they prolong that curve into an antecedent 

 world, and accept as probable the unbroken se- 

 quence of the development from the nebula to the 

 present time." 



When I was seven or eight years old, I came 

 across an article in Chambers's Journal upon 

 Plateau's experiments with rotating oil-drops, and 

 their bearing on the nebular hypothesis. I was 

 highly delighted with this, and made notes of it 

 on the fly-leaves of a book of Bible-stories. My no- 

 tion was that creation was precisely a large Pla- 

 teau's experiment. Now I am pretty sure that this 

 unfortunate circumstance retarded my knowledge 

 of the nebular hypothesis by some years, because 

 it gave me an idea that I knew all about it al- 

 ready. 



Besides the nebular hypothesis, there are 

 other doctrines about the origin of the world 

 which it seems undesirable to have taught to our 

 children. One ' is an account of a wet beginning 

 of things, after which the waters were divided by 

 a firm canopy of sky, and the dry land appeared 

 underneath. Plants, and animals, and men, were 

 successively formed by the word of a deity en 

 throned above the canopy. Another account is 

 of a dry beginning of things, namely, a garden, 

 subsequently watered by a mist, in which there 

 were no plants until a man was put there to till 



1 See that admirable book, "The Bible for Young 

 People," Williams and Norgate, 1873. 



