THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE, l\% 



of that substance^ should resemble that which formed 

 under similar conditions twelve months or two years 

 previously. He who believes in the uniformity of 

 natural phenomena could anticipate no other result. 

 Living matter which is now produced de novo^ speedily 

 shapes itself into some well-known formj and so also 

 new crystalline matter which may have been produced 

 synthetically by the chemist in his laboratory, falls 

 habitually into one or other of the known crystalline 

 systems. 



It seems, again, no more wonderful that the organism 

 which develops de novo to-day should resemble another 

 which develops from the ' spore ' of a pre-existing 

 organism, than that a crystal which forms to-day in 

 a saline solution should resemble another which is 

 capable of arising by the growth of a portion detached 

 from a similar pre-existing crystal. In all these cases, 

 there is a similarity of product, because the crystalline 

 or organic form produced is to be regarded as the 

 physical expression of the harmonious actions which 

 have led to their production — because the forms are 

 the results of a physical necessity _, and not of a mere 

 blind chance 1. 



^ And yet an objection has been gravely raised by an eminent biolo- 

 gist to receiving the conclusion which I was iriclined to draw from some 

 of my experiments, on account of the extreme difficulty he experienced in 

 believing that the same simple Fungi could be produced from new-born 

 living matter as were known to be produced in other ways — that is, by 

 some of the methods of reproduction to which we have just been alluding. 

 If it be supposed that such organisms have been reproducing after this 

 VOL. II. I 



