ON THE VITALISTIC VIEW OF NATURE. 451 



we can realise or imagine. And thirdly, hand in hand 

 with the conviction of this unique but ubiquitous character 

 of life, the impression of the mutual interdependence of 

 living creatures has gained ground, and has especially in- 

 fluenced our ideas of the cause and treatment of disease. 



In one of those luminous addresses in which he 49. 



Biogenesis. 



has rivalled the combination of literary with scientific 

 clearness characteristic of the French genius, the late 

 Prof. Huxley has written the history of Biogenesis l 

 i.e., of the theories of the origin of life from 

 the time of the Italian Redi down to Pasteur, show- 

 ing how experiment and theory alternately supported 

 and contradicted the doctrine that living matter could 

 be formed out of not - living matter, till the great 

 French biologist, by his refined experiments, entirely 

 banished from the provinces of science and practice 

 the once admitted; fact that, after exclusion or destruc- 

 tion of all living germs, phenomena peculiar to life, such 

 as fermentation and putrefaction, could be generated. 

 Those great departments of medical practice, the anti- 

 septic and aseptic treatment, witl! their enormous de- 

 velopment of prophylactic and antitoxic methods, form 

 the daily and ever-growing argument against abiogenesis 



1 In his presidential address to 

 the British Association in 1870, 

 reprinted in ' Critiques and Ad- 

 dresses,' p. 218 aqq. A very 

 readable and much earlier deliver- 

 ance on "The Diffusion of Life" 

 is that by K. E. von Baer, before 

 the Academy of St Petersburg in 

 1838, reprinted in the first volume 

 of his ' Reden,' &c., p. 161 sqq. 

 In the preface of 1864 to this 

 reprint, the illustrious author tells 

 us that between 1810 and 1830 



there were probably few naturalists 

 who "did not consider the gener- 

 ation without parents of inferior 

 organisms as proved, or at least 

 as highly probable," and he him- 

 self would not at that time (1838) 

 " declare it to be non-existent " 

 (p. 173). In 1864 he describes the 

 theory as having almost vanished, 

 leaving the problem of the first 

 beginnings of life in the number- 

 less varieties, even after Darwin's 

 hypothesis, unsolved (p. 177). 



