14 JOURNAL OF THE [January, 



But those to whom I refer as having studied this question, be- 

 lieving the evidence offered in favor of spontaneous generation 

 to be vitiated by error, cannot accept it. They know full well 

 that the chemist now prepares from inorganic matter a vast array 

 of substances which were some time ago regarded as the prod- 

 ucts solely of vitality. They are intimately acquainted with 

 the structural power of matter, as evidenced in the phenomena 

 of crystallization. They can justify scientifically their belief 

 in its potency, under the proper conditions, to produce organ- 

 isms. But, in reply to your question, they will frankly admit 

 their inability to point to any satisfactory experimental proof 

 that life can be developed, save from demonstrable antecedent 

 life." 



In his address on " Fermentation and its bearing on the 

 Phenomena of Disease," delivered before the Glasgow Science 

 Lecture Association, in October, 1876, Professor Tyndall again 

 referred to this subject in the following words : " Is there then 

 no experimental proof of spontaneous generation ? I answer, 

 without hesitation, none ! But to doubt the experimental proof 

 of a fact and to deny its possibility are two different things, 

 though some writers confuse matters by making them synony- 

 mous. In fact, this doctrine of spontaneous generation, in one 

 form or another, falls in with the theoretic beliefs of some of 

 the foremost workers of this age ; but it is exactly these men 

 who have the penetration to see, and the honesty to expose, the 

 weakness of the evidence adduced in its support." 



At another time Professor Tyndall, in reply to strictures of 

 Professor Virchow, said : " I share his opinion that the theory 

 of evolution in its complete form involves the assumption that 

 at some period or other of the earth's history there occurred 

 what would be now called spontaneous generation. I agree 

 with him that 'the proofs of it are still wanting.'" Then he 

 quotes Virchow as saying: "Whoever recalls to mind the 

 lamentable failures of all the attempts made very recently to 

 discover a decided support for the generatio mquivoca in the 

 lower form's of transition from the inorganic to the organic 

 world, will feel it doubly serious to demand that this theory, so 

 utterly discredited, should be in any way accepted as the basis 

 of all our views of life ;" and to this Professor Tyndall adds : " I 

 hold, with Virchow, that the failures have been lamentable, that 



