THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 15 



The experimental facts of biogenesis he discards in 

 favour of a hypothetical and at present undiscovered kind 

 of spontaneous generation. 



When we recollect that this is the third formulation under 

 the severe strictures of Professor Ray-Lankester of Sir 

 Oliver's opinion, it has a singular complexion. The " facts 

 of biogenesis " have, as Sir W. Turner pointed out long ago 

 in his presidential speech, no bearing on the problem. 

 They are not discarded in the least degree by Haeckel; 

 they are irrelevant. The positive facts merely amount to a 

 proof that certain species of microscopic organisms, which 

 no one to-day would dream of as arising by spontaneous 

 generation such as the infusoria are born of living parents. 

 Beyond this we can only say that the great majority of 

 biologists acknowledge no present instance of living things 

 arising by spontaneous generation. I say the great majority 

 because there are biologists of distinction (Dr. Bastian, 

 Professor Naegeli, and others, as well as Professor Haeckel) 

 who believe, partly on experimental grounds, that things are 

 born to-day by spontaneous generation. Moreover, at the 

 very time when Sir Oliver Lodge was penning his dogmatic 

 phrase, the claim of two competent students (Mr. Burke 

 and M. Dubois) to have produced living things without 

 living parentage was under the serious consideration of 

 science, as he knew. 



Indeed, it is really quite meaningless to quote " the facts 

 of biogenesis " in connection with the matter, though it 

 impresses the uninformed. Biogenesis means that a living 

 thing is born, by seed, by budding, by spores, or by 



