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all the varied forms of microbe life ? There is scarcely any, 

 if there is any fluid, in which these minute forms are not 

 present. Dr. Angus Smith tells us that even in very pure 

 spring water he finds them doing chemical work. They are 

 present in the saliva, apparently elaborating a specific alka- 

 loid ; they are traceable in every organic fiuid which has not 

 been sterilised by heat. Under the microscope they " come 

 'like shadows, so depart." Leeuwenhoek wondered that his 

 moutli should contain more living beings than there were 

 people in the States of Holland, and modern microscopic in- 

 vestigation is certainly giving a kind of basis to the fancies 

 of Rabelais and Swift. Are our failures to convert diff*erent 

 species of microbes, to establish jDhysiological polymorphism, 

 due to the circum.stance that we do not begin with the 

 original forms ? The essence of Darwinism is not that the 

 cat has been developed from the lion, or the tiger from either, 

 but that all have proceeded from some more primitive form. 

 Possibly Bacillus anthracis is not a " sport " from Bacillus 

 suhtilis, but both are parallel developments from some more 

 simple organism. There is a cei^tain fascination in the ideas 

 of Bechamp. According to B^champ it is from the granu- 

 lations, from certain apparently amorphous structures 

 observable in organic liquids under the microscope, that all 

 the forms of organised life are evolved, according to the 

 conditions of culture. Bechamp believes in the continued 

 existence of such microzymes in chalk and other geological 

 formations of the life of past geological epochs. The 

 rocks themselves include the germs of life. This seems to 

 be a reproduction of the idea of Buffbn respecting the exis- 

 tence of organic molecules, as Pasteur has pointed out ; and 

 Bechamp in fact admits that it is. As already remarked, 

 Pasteur does not absolutely refuse to admit the possibility 

 of such an hypothesis; all that he says is that the experi- 

 ments which are said to have proved its truth are unsatis- 

 factory, and that it is so far absolutely without proof, no 



