INTRODUCTION 1 1 



morous comment, and many elaborate quotations from 

 the classics are inserted as proof or refutation of theories 

 advanced. 



To the student of the history of biology, the book is 

 a milestone marking the beginning of a great epoch. It 

 records the first, and therefore the most important, state- 

 ment supported by experimental evidence of that great 

 generalization named by Huxley the theory of biogenesis, 

 a theory, which in its application, has probably been of 

 more benefit to mankind than any other result of scien- 

 tific investigation. 



The Translator. 



