Panspermism. 



1m ft)- years ago a very reckless heresy was pre- 

 valent in Germany, which afterwards gained some 

 ground with superficial thinkers in this country, 

 that, under varied and changed conditions of heat, 

 moisture, etc., the same germ was capable of pro- 

 ducing widely different objects. Many books were 

 written in which these views were inculcated, and 

 supported by the vaguest of arguments, and incon- 

 sequent or unsatisfactory observations. Here and 

 there were a few earnest men, whose judgment was 

 misguided, but whose opinions were entitled to 

 respect, since doubtless to them their conclusions 

 seemed to be logical, and loyal to their religious 

 belief The extent to which these views were carried 

 may be predicated from the following observation, 

 made by Riessek of Vienna,^ who claimed to have 

 " succeeded in making pollen grains germinate in 

 the parenchym of leaves and stems, not merely of 

 the mother-plant, but also on those of others belong- 

 ing to different natural orders ; that they produced 

 fungi laden with spores, and that these spores when 

 placed in water produced confervoid plants filled 

 with chlorophyl, and copulating with one another ; 

 that he observed also the metamorphosis of the 

 pollen-cells into animals of Ehrenberg's genus 

 Astasia, and that the contents of the pollen-cells 

 also produced plants and animals. From the smaller 

 particles originated Bacteria, Vibrios, and Confervae ; 

 and from the larger, green globular monads." He 



* BotaiiiKhe Zcitung,]\x\y 19, 1844. 



M 



