154 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



those, who have asserted that the species or genus of 

 a Fungus depends upon the matrix by which it is 

 nourished, are at least specious; especially if we 

 take the above fact in connection with the experi- 

 ments of Dutrochet, who obtained different genera 

 of mouldiness at will, by employing different in- 

 fusions.' 



Representatives of various kinds of simpler Fungi are 

 produced from different Torula with the greatest ease. 

 Throughout all the stages of their development there 

 is merely a modified repetition of the simple processes 

 which are ever taking place amongst Bacteria and Torula 

 during their more familiar ^discontinuous' growth. 

 Experiment and observation alike compel us to believe 

 that the new-born specks of living matt:ir unfold into 

 these various organic forms, under the combined influ- 

 ence of intrinsic tendencies and extrinsic agencies — 

 just as the forms of the various kinds of crystalline 

 matter are due to the particular atomic or molecular 

 combinations of which they are composed, subject to 

 the influence of the conditions amidst which aggregation 

 takes place ^. 



^ As we have already pointed out, organic matter is much more 

 easily destructible than saline matter by exposure to very high tempera- 

 tures ; it is worthy of observation, therefore, that the saline solutions 

 used in my experiments (270° — 307°F) have proved much more produc- 

 tive than the simple organic infusions. The latter, moreover, have 

 . proved less and less productive with each fresh increment of heat. 

 Omitting Exp. h, in which no carbon was present, the remaining 

 twenty-four experiments may be thus tabulated : — 



