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suggestiveness. Dr. Smith nnds that from very pure spring 

 water up to the most foul sewage hydrogen is given off, 

 and that in each case its quantity is strictly proportionate 

 to the activity of the microbe life present. Nitrates are 

 found in rain water, but have been attributed by Obin and 

 Muntz to electrical action, and to the presence of minute 

 crystals in the atmosphere.* Considered from Pasteur's 

 standpoint it will be seen that such phenomena may vastly 

 extend our idea of the part played by life throughout the 

 universe. The philosophical result of Pasteur's teaching 

 may be perhaps best expressed by his answer to the famous 

 question of Liebig, repeated by M. Bouillaud in the Academy 

 of Sciences, as to what are the ferments of ferments ? " If," 

 says Liebig, " the fungus or mushroom be the cause of the 

 destruction of the oak — if the animalcule be the cause of 

 the putrefaction of a dead elephant ; what then is the cause 

 of putrefaction after death of the fungus ? what is the cause 

 of the putrefaction and decay of the dead animalcule ? 

 They also ferment, decay, and putrefy, and finally disappear 

 entii'ely, just as do the mighty tree and the gigantic animal ; 

 and the final products are the same in all." " Dead aerobics," 

 replies M. Pasteur, "become the prey of new aerobics of 

 difterent species or of their own species. Though a mass 

 of germs becomes in its turn a mass of organic matter 

 susceptible to putrefaction and combustion, those germs, 

 nevertheless, represent life in its eternal form ; for life is 

 the germ, and the germ is life." 



9. — A consideration of the new views as to the influence 

 of the microbe in the chemistry of the universe naturally 

 leads to a consideration of the possible influence of chemical 

 conditions upon the microbe. This is the old question of the 

 influence of tlie environment upon the form of the organism, 

 or, as we may say, in perhaps a deeper philosophical sense, 

 upon its life. This branch of the enquiry has an important 



* If any reliance can be placed on spectrum analysis, alcohol is present 

 in the tails of comets. 



