OMNE VIVUM E VIVO. 49 



that spontaneous generation never now 

 occurs, but living things arise always from 

 pre-existing living things, that is, from 

 germs. They thereupon formulated the 

 law : " Omne vivum e vivo " : and this is 

 now the orthodox belief amongst biologists. 

 To doubt it is heresy, and to dispute it is to 

 incur excommunication, both scientific and 

 theological. On the kind of germs, how 

 long these had previously existed, and 

 whence they had originally come, these 

 experimenters did not venture to dog- 

 matise. It is, however, admitted that they 

 belong to the vegetable kingdom, are 

 separate simple cells of vegetable protoplasm, 

 are minute plants, protophytes. 



Though the experiments of Pasteur 

 militate against the idea of the spontaneous 

 generation of protoplasm taking place now, 

 they are of no force against the doctrine 

 of its primitive or original spontaneous 

 generation. The beginning of life in 

 organic fluids being prevented by filtering 

 the germs out of the air, does not prove 

 that these germs had not themselves arisen 

 spontaneously ; if they had not, then they 

 must have been specially created ; and no 

 true scientist will contend for their special 

 creation. Nor does it prove that they do 



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