WHAT EVOLUTION IS 39 



the view that new organisms, plants 

 and animals, were being continually 

 produced by nature, that fish, frogs, 

 worms, and the like were being 

 formed continually from the mud 

 and slime in the bottoms of ponds, 

 that maggots were being generated 

 spontaneously in decomposing meat, 

 and that parasitic worms were being 

 produced in the interior of the ani- 

 mals whose bodies they inhabit; in 

 short that the process of spontaneous 

 generation pervaded nature gener- 

 ally. They were not conversant with 

 the modern idea, arrived at after 

 long experimentation, that all living 

 things come from preexisting living 

 things and that none are formed de 

 novo. They held that mother earth 

 was continually producing new life 

 from her own substance. 



With this doctrine in mind, their 

 interpretation of fossils _^as very 



