CHAPTER VI. 



OF DIRECT OR SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 



Life and organisation are products of nature, and at the same time 

 results of the powers conferred upon nature by the Supreme Author 

 of all things and of the laws by which she herself is constituted : this 

 can no longer be called in question. Life and organisation are thus 

 purely natural phenomena, and their destruction in any individual is 

 also a natural phenomenon, necessarily following from the first. 



Bodies are incessantly undergoing transformations in their con- 

 dition, combination and character ; in the course of which some are 

 always passing from the inert or passive condition to that which permits 

 of the presence of Ufe in them, while the rest are passing back from the 

 living state to the crude and lifeless state. These transitions from life 

 to death and from death to life are evidently part of the immense 

 cycle of changes of every kind to which all physical bodies are liable 

 as time goes on. 



Nature, as I have already said, herself creates the rudiments of 

 organisation in masses where it did not previously exist ; subsequently, 

 use and the vital movements cause the development and increasing 

 complexity of the organs {Recherches sur les corps vivants, p. 92). 



However extraordinary this proposition may appear, we shall be 

 obliged to abandon any opinion to the contrary if we take the trouble 

 to examine and reflect seriously upon the principles which I am about 

 to advance. 



The ancient philosophers had observed the power of heat, and noted 

 the extreme fertility which it confers on the various parts of the earth's 

 surface in proportion to its abundance ; but they omitted to reflect 

 that the co-operation of moisture is the essential condition for making 

 the heat so fertile and necessary to life. Since however they perceived 

 that life in all living bodies derives its support and activity from 

 heat, and that the privation of heat everywhere results in death, 

 they concluded with justice not only that heat was necessary for 



