XI PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE 385 



course, he expected he would get no infusorial 

 animalcules at all in that infusion ; but, to his 

 great dismay and discomfiture, he found he almost 

 always did get them. 



Furthermore, it has been found that experi 

 ments made in the manner described above answer 

 well with most infusions ; but that if you fill the 

 vessel with boiled milk, and then stop the neck 

 with cotton-wool, you will have infusoria. So that 

 you see there were two experiments that brought 

 you to one kind of conclusion, and three to an 

 other ; which was a most unsatisfactory state of 

 things to arrive at in a scientific inquiry. 



Some few years after this, the question began 

 to be very hotly discussed in France. There was 

 M. Pouchet, a professor at Rouen, a very learned 

 man, but certainly not a very rigid experimental 

 ist. He published a number of experiments of his 

 own, some of which were very ingenious, to show 

 that if you went to work in a proper way, there 

 was a truth in the doctrine of spontaneous genera 

 tion. Well, it was one of the most fortunate things 

 in the world that M. Pouchet took up this question, 

 because it induced a distinguished French chemist, 

 M. Pasteur, to take up the question on the other 

 side ; and he has certainly worked it out in the 

 most perfect manner. I am glad to say, too, that 

 he has published his researches in time to enable 

 me to give you an account of them. He verified 

 all the experiments which I have just mentioned 

 VOL. II C C 



