6 



deserves great credit for the labour he has bestowed in the pre- 

 paration of it. 



He has certainly shewn beyond a doubt that it is almost 

 impossible to keep life out of solutions of vegetable matters. 



But Dr. Bastian does not stop at maintaining that life is 

 constantly being produced on the earth, de novo; but in his 

 arguments on Heterogenesis, which I can do no more than briefly 

 advert to, he maintains that in some instances animals with 

 distinct and specific organs arise from the reproductive elements 

 of a plant. 



He strengthens his view by quoting the opinions and detailing 

 the experiments of other observers. 



I do not wish to misquote Dr. Bastian, nor to dispute his 

 conclusions, without going more deeply into the subject than I 

 am able in this short address, and therefore give an extract of 

 his own words : — 



" No other conclusion remains for us but that the several organisms (found 

 " in infusions) are products of the direct developmental unfolding of new-bom 

 " specks of living matter. And yet among these forms we see Bacteria, Vibri- 

 " ones, Leptothrix, and Torulse, Fungus filaments, -with and without fructifica- 

 " tion, Protamoebae and Flagellated Monads, Pediastreoe and Algoid filaments. 

 " AH these are therefore proved with the greatest certainty to be interchangeable 

 " forms, which may be assumed on difierent occasions by newly evolved specks 

 " of living matter." 



Dr. Bastian quotes Dr. Braxton Hicks as having observed the 

 production of Amoebae by the transformation of the chlorophyll 

 and protoplasmic contents of the cells of moss radicles, and Mr. 

 H. J. Carter as having observed the formation of Monads and 

 Amcebaj in the cells of Nitella, one of the CharaceEe. 



I think I have said sufficient to shew that if Dr. Bastian and 

 others can substantiate the truth of the views here adverted to, 

 a great revolution will take place in the ideas of Naturalists on 

 the subject of Heredity. Instead of like producing like, the 

 converse would often be the case. 



It may here be remarked that although, by boiling infusions 

 at high temperatures, the w'hole of the life which had assumed a 

 concrete form therein might be destroyed, it does not follow that 

 germs of life, or the power of reassuming the same concrete forms, 

 would be destroyed ; and I can myself better conceive the idea of 

 life becoming latent, than that it could be produced de novo, or 

 that vegetal spores could lie transformed into animal. 



