Tue MIcROSscOPE. — 
bo 
i) 
— 
LOWEST AND SMALLEST FORMS OF LIFE AS 
REVEALED BY THE MODERN MICROSCOPE. 
The following are some of the principal passages of a lec- 
ture delivered by Rev. Dr. W. H. Dallinger, at the Montreal 
meeting of the British Association. The Times says of it, 
“ But, perhaps, the most popular and generally instructive fea- 
ture in connection with biology at Montreal was the address of 
Dr. Dallinger, in which he exhibited by word and picture the 
wonderful revelation of the lowest forms of life made by the 
modern Microscope; and in which he showed that however 
easy it may seem to generate life in the proper conditions, no 
one has ever yet succeeded in producing spontaneous genera- 
tion. And here Dr. Dallinger is in accord with the most com- 
petent scientific opinion.” 
Dr. Dallinger said :—‘ The labor, enthusiasm, and persever- 
ance of thirty years, stimulated by the insight of a rare and 
master mind, and aided by lenses of steadily advancing per- 
fection, has enabled the student of life-forms not simply to be- 
come possessed of an inconceivably broader, deeper, and truer 
knowledge of the great world of visible life, of which he him- 
self is a factor, but also to open up and penetrate into a world 
of minute living things so ultimately little that we cannot ade- 
quately conceive them, which are, nevertheless, perfect in their 
adaptations and wonderful in their histories. These organisms, 
while they are the least, are also the lowest in nature, and are 
totally devoid, of what is known as organic structure, even 
when serutinized with our most powerful and perfect lenses. 
Now, these organisms lie on the very verge and margin of the 
vast area of what we know as living. They possess the essen- 
tial properties of life, but in their most initial state. And their 
numberless billions springing every moment into existence 
wherever putresence appeared, led to the question, How do 
they originate?—do they spring up de novo from the highest 
point on the area of not life which they touch? Are they, in 
short, the direct product of some yet uncorrelated force in na- 
