390 PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE XI 
would contain such an enormous number of these 
germs, that it would be a continual fog. But M. 
Pasteur replied that they are not there in any- 
thing like the number we might suppose, and that 
an exaggerated view has been held on that subject; 
he showed that the chances of animal or vegetable 
life appearing in infusions, depend entirely on the 
conditions under which they are exposed. If they 
are exposed to the ordinary atmosphere around 
us, why, of course, you may have organisms ap- 
pearing early. But, on the other hand, if they are 
exposed to air at a great height, or in some very 
quiet cellar, you will often not find a single trace 
of life. 
So that M. Pasteur arrived at: last at the clear 
and definite result, that all these appearances are 
like the case of the worms in the piece of meat, 
which was refuted by Redi, simply germs carried 
by the air and deposited in the liquids in which 
they afterwards appear. For my own part, I con- 
ceive that, with the particulars of M. Pasteur’s ex- 
periments before us, we cannot fail to arrive at his 
conclusions ; and that the doctrine of spontaneous 
generation has received a final coup de grace. 
You, of course, understand that all this in no 
way interferes with the possibility of the fabrica-— 
tion of organic matters by the direct method to — 
which I fave referred, remote as that possibility — 
may be. ; 
