SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. ' 295 



Gernez, of Violette, of Lecoq de Boisbaudran, the ex- 

 periments of Ostwald and of Tammann, the observa- 

 tions of Crookes and of Armstrong — all this series of 

 researches, so lucidly summarized by M. Leo Errera 

 in his essays in botanical philosophy, had for their 

 result the establishment of an unsuspected relation 

 between the processes of crystallization and those of 

 generation in animals and plants. 



Protoplasm is a Substance ivJiich Continues. The 

 Case of the Crystal. — Under present conditions a living 

 being of any kind springs from another living being 

 similar to itself. 



Its protoplasm is always a continuation of the 

 protoplasm of an ancestor. It is an atavic substance 

 of which we do not see the beginning; we only see it 

 continue. The anatomical element comes from a 

 preceding anatomical element, and the higher animal 

 itself comes from a pre-existing cell of the material 

 organism, the ovum. The ladder of filiation reaches 

 back indefinitely into the past. 



We shall see that there is something analogous to 

 this in certain crystals. They are born of a preceding 

 individual; they may be considered as the posterity 

 of the antecedent crystal. If we speak of the matter 

 of a crystal as the matter of a living being is spoken 

 of, in cases of this kind we would say that the 

 crystalline substance is an atavic substance of which 

 we see only the continuation, as in the case of 

 protoplasm. 



Characters of Generation in the Living Being.— ^ 

 Growth of the living substance, and consequently of 

 the being itself, is the fundamental law of vitality. 

 Generation is the necessary consequence of growth 

 (p. 210). 



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