EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



that, if boiling be not performed, but merely filter 

 ing through a germ-proof filter, the result (the non- 

 development of life) would be conclusive; but it 

 has been shown that such filtration alone suffices 

 to alter the chemical nature of the filtered fluid. 

 &quot; Spontaneous generation&quot; is not, therefore, proved 

 to be a myth even by this experiment. So much 

 for destructive criticism. 



But Dr. Bastian has also positive results to of 

 fer. He has seen, he tells me, the development, 

 in a previously clear fluid, of minute black spots, 

 which gradually enlarge, and at last become motile 

 bacteria. This change cannot successfully be re 

 corded ; but it seems to me to be not inconceivable 

 that a cinematographic apparatus might be ad 

 justed to the microscope, and thus demonstrate, 

 beyond all cavil, the evolution which Dr. Bastian 

 declares that he has seen. 



The most remarkable photograph that Dr. Bas 

 tian has taken shows the spines, magnified seven 

 hundred times, of a minute water-animal known as 

 the Cyclops. In these spines, which are absolutely 

 impervious to the smallest known organisms, there 

 develop a number of spots, which finally are rec 

 ognizable as bacteria. This his photographs clear 

 ly show. Either these bacteria have arisen de novo 

 in the tissue of the spine, or they are the en 

 larged forms of some bacteria, hitherto unknown, 

 which are too small for the microscope to detect 

 are ultra-microscopic and which have somehow 

 made their way through the tough covering of the 



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