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Article XXVIII. 



On the Origin of Organic Matter from simple Perceptible 

 Matter, and o?i Organic Molecules and Atoms; together 

 with some Remarks on the Poiver of Vision of the Human 

 Eye ; by Prof. C. G. Ehrenberg. 



(From Poggendoi-fF's Annalen der Phijsik und Chemie, vol. xxiv. p. 1.*) 



J. HERE have been philosophers who have considered the magnitude 

 of the elementary particles of bodies not to be so extremely minute as 

 to be beyond the reach of the human senses ; and there have been che- 

 mists who have conceived it to be possible to follow the successive 

 combinations of the primitive substances or simple matter up to the for- 

 mation of living organisms, indeed, have even given them a place in the 

 class of observed facts. Others have thought that they perceived a 

 peculiar process of fermentation, the product of which was the forma- 

 tion of minute animal and vegetable bodies, and to which process the 

 name of infusorial fermentation has been given. The probability of 

 obtaining organic bodies by chemico-synthetical means has of late 

 gained ground chiefly because we had advanced so far as the prepara- 

 tion, almost synthetical in appearance, of some organic products by 

 chemical means, and have observed galvanic processes or capillary ac- 

 tions, which are very similar to, perhaps quite the same as, certain or- 

 ganic phsenomena. As this is one of the most interesting and import- 

 ant subjects of human inquiry, and has excited hopes of great and 

 speedy results, it may be useful, in order that our inquiries may not de- 

 viate from the right road, to direct the attention of philosophers and 

 chemists to some physiological experiments which I read in the Academy 

 of Sciences of Berlin, and which I made known last year in a zoological 

 memoir, extracts of which have been given in other journals devoted to 

 physics, but which, so to speak, I myself will endeavour to clothe in 

 a physical dress. 



I. Critical examination of the Generatio ^Equivoca. 



I have for a long series of years been occupied in investigating the 

 conditions of the generatio aquivoca of organic bodies. For this pur- 

 pase it was necessary to subject to careful observation, as to their vital 

 relations and primitive conditions, those organic bodies of whose origin 

 a generatio primitiva or spontanea is asserted. 



1. Fungi By careful examinations of the fungi and of mould, the 



• The Editor is indebted for the translation and communication of this paper 

 to Mr. W. Francis. 



