SPONTANEOUS GENERATION 109 



to a temperature several degrees above the boiling 

 point no life developed even with an abundant 

 supply of oxygen. It was not the germs alone that 

 were required as Pasteur at first thought, nor 

 oxygen alone as the champions of spontaneous gen- 

 eration thought, but germs plus oxygen as Pasteur 

 later came to discover. 



I have been able to give but a brief sketch of 

 the numerous experiments which the battle over 

 spontaneous generation called forth. Few problems 

 in science have proven so baffling. The difficulties 

 and the pitfalls besetting the investigators of this 

 question have led many into errors, and Pasteur 

 himself was not entirely free from them. But the 

 conquest of the difficulties has added much to our 

 knowledge of the world of microscopic life. To- 

 day the scientific world is convinced that spon- 

 taneous generation, in the sense in which it was 

 formerly believed, does not occur. That it has not 

 occurred, or may not occur under precisely the 

 right conditions, the cautious scientist would not 

 assert. How the gap between the inorganic and 

 the organic was bridged is a problem still far from 

 solution. 



The more we know of minute organisms the 

 more their propagation is found to resemble that of 



