344 THE HISTOKY OF CKEATION. 



of the Monera takes place by true autogeny, then it is 

 further requisite that that plasma capable of life, that pri- 

 maeval mucus, should be formed out of simpler combinations 

 of carbon. As we are now able artificially to produce, 

 in our laboratories, combinations of carbon similar to this 

 in the complexity of their constitution, there is absolutely 

 no reason for supposing that there are not conditions in free 

 nature also, in which such combinations could take place. 

 Formerly, when the doctrine of spontaneous generation was 

 advocated, it failed at once to obtain adherents on account 

 of the composite structure of the simplest organisms then 

 known. It is only since we have discovered the exceedingly 

 important Monera, only since we have become acquainted 

 in them with organisms not in any way built up of distinct 

 organs, but which consist solely of a single chemical combin- 

 ation, and yet grow, nourish, and propagate themselves, that 

 this great difficulty has been removed, and the hypothesis of 

 spontaneous generation has gained a degree of probabiHty 

 which entitles it to fill up the gap existing between Kant's 

 cosmogony and Lamarck's Theory of Descent. Even 

 among the Monera at present known there is a species 

 which probably, even now, always comes into existence by 

 spontaneous generation. This is the wonderful Bathyhius 

 Hceckelii, discovered and described by Huxley. As I have 

 already mentioned (p. 184), this Moneron is found in the 

 greatest depths of the sea, at a depth of between 12,000 and 

 24,000 feet, where it covers the ground partly as retiform 

 threads and plaits of plasma, partly in the form of larger or 

 smaller irregular lumps of the same material.* 



* We must wait for fuller information on the subject of Bathybius, at the 

 hands of the naturalists of the Challenger expedition, before accepting 

 it finally as a distinct organism. — Editor. 



