133 



On so-called Spontaneous Generation. 



By Benjamin T. Lowne, M.R.C.S. 



(Read September 23rd, 1870. J 



When I announced a month ago that I would read you a paper 

 on " Spontaneous Generation," I had no idea that one of the great- 

 est living naturalists was going to give a most able resume on the 

 subject, or perhaps I should have hesitated in coming before you. 

 Nevertheless I feel it is a matter for congratulation that I did so, 

 as many unanswered questions have arisen since Professor Huxley 

 delivered his address at Liverpool. 



Two hundred and two years ago Francesco Redi successfully 

 combated the then prevalent doctrine of spontaneous generation by 

 the most simple, nay, almost childlike experiments, such as putting 

 meat under fine gauze, and so showing that maggots are not 

 spontaneously generated. Since that day the tendency of experi- 

 ments has certainly been in .favour of Recli's aphorism, " Omne 



vivum e vivo." 



The question, however, all turns upon that little word omne, all ; 

 whether all living things originate from germs, or whether some 

 may originate spontaneously from not living matter. 



Now, there can be no doubt but that there was a first cell and a 

 first organism which had no progenitor. Professor Huxley said 

 last week, that although he could not believe anything in the ab- 

 sence of evidence upon the subject, that " expectation is permis- 

 sible where belief is not ;" and that if it were given him " to look 

 beyond the abyss of geologically recorded time to the still more 

 remote period, when the earth was passing through physical and 

 chemical conditions, which it can no more see again than a man 

 can recall his infancy," he " should expect to be a witness of the 

 evolution of living protoplasm from not living matter." 



To show you that I am not biassed in this matter, and that I am 

 no partisan, I tell you I go farther in my expectation than Pro- 

 fessor Huxley, and I think that if we could produce the conditions 

 we might see amcebiform protoplasm originating even yet from 



