26 



weaker foliage : from what either results, our 

 too scanty store of knowledge avails us not 

 to tell. It may be that, precisely as the sper- 

 matozoa, which Leeuwenhoek in 1677 discov- 

 ered, existing in the bodies of men ; so other 

 living germs, antagonistic to the evil kinds, 

 may oppose the latter in undebilitated systems 

 and wage war upon the humours in our blood. 



I am aware that this mere idea of things 

 such as living atoms produced by the forces of 

 Nature is, in itself, by no means novel. 



The wise Aristotle conceived that the mud 

 of rivers might become impregnated with ac- 

 tive life by the wizardry of Spontaneous Gen- 

 eration and thus give birth to fishes. Then 

 you will recall to mind the old fable of the 

 bees whom Sampson found abiding in the li- 

 on's carcass. Oh how bitterly the church at- 

 tacked the presumptuous few who first timor- 

 ously ventured to question the validity of the 

 grounds for this utter absurdity ! to deny the 

 statement that neither germs or eggs were nee 

 essary for the production of the insects ! But 

 the churchmen got a serious set back early in 

 the seventeenth century when Redi laid bare 

 the surpassing fallacy of their claims by ma- 

 king known his justly celebrated experiment 



