326 THE CANADIAN NAURALIST. [Sept. 



putrefaction of an animal or a plant ia merely the breaking up of 

 the form, or manner of association, of its constituent organic 

 molecules, which are then set free as infusorial animalcules. 



It will bs perceived that this doctrine is by no means identical 

 with Abiogenesis, with which it is often confounded. On this 

 hypothesis, a piece of beef or a handful of hay is dead only in a 

 limited sense. The beef is dead ox, and the hay is dead grass ; 

 but the '' organic molecules " of the beef or the hay are not dead, 

 but are ready to manifest their vitality as soon as the bovine or 

 herbaceous shrouds in which they are imprisoned are rent by the 

 macerating action of water. The hypothesis, therefore, must be 

 classified under Xenogenesis rather than under Abiogenesis. Such 

 as it was, I think it will appear, to those who will be just enough 

 to remember that it was propounded before the birth of modern 

 chemistry and of the modern optical arts, to be a most ingenious 

 and suggestive speculation. 



But the great tragedy of science — the slaying of a beautiful 

 hypothesis by an ugly fact — which is so constantly being enacted 

 under the eyes of philosophers, was played almost immediately, 

 for the benefit of Buffon and Needham. 



Once more, an Italian, the Abbe Spallanzani, a worthy successor 

 and representative of Bedi in his acuteness, his ingenuity, and his 

 learning, subjected the experiments and the conclusions of 

 Needham to a searching criticism. It might be true that 

 Needham's experiments yielded results such as he had described, 

 but did they bear out his arguments ? ^yas it not possible, in 

 the first place, that he had not completely excluded the air by his 

 corks and mastic ? And was it not possible; in the second place, 

 that he had not sufficiently heated his infusions and the superjacent 

 air ? Spallanzani joined issue with the English naturalist on both 

 these pleas ; and he showed that if, in the first place, the glass 

 vessels in which the infusions were contained were hermetically 

 sealed by fusing their necks, and if, in the second place, they were 

 exposed to the temperature of boiling-water for three quarters of 

 an hour (see Spallanzani, 'Opere' vi. pp. 42 and 51), no 

 animalcules ever made their appearance within them. It must be 

 admitted that the experiments and arguments of Spallanzani 

 furnish a complete and a crushing reply to those of Needham. 

 But we all too often forget that it is one thing to refute a 

 proposition, and another to prove the truth of a doctrine which 



