24 THE ORIGIN OP CREATION. 



when animals are transported to other countries, they live a 

 precarious existence, and require to be carefully tended a 

 study being necessarily made of their natural appetites and 

 habits, in order to preserve life. 



We find also that many animals die, or are exterminated 

 from a country. The wolf has gone out of Britain, and 

 geologists tell us that the elephant, the woolly rhinoceros, and 

 the cave bear, had once a home there in ages gone by. 



"What inference then must we draw from these facts ? 

 Nothing less than that these animals were produced on those 

 soils, and in those countries in which their remains are found, 

 and that the condition on which their lives depended being 

 changed, they had to die, and became extinct. 



While thus showing the truth of spontaneous generation, 

 let us review the arguments which have been adduced for and 

 against it. 



A number of years ago, the French Academy offered a 

 prize for the best essay on the subject, and it was awarded 

 to M. Pasteur, a celebrated chemist, an opponent of spon- 

 taneous generation. Dr. Child, an eminent English physician, 

 however, tried the same experiments from which Pasteur 

 derived his arguments, and with a more powerful microscope, 

 found life where Pasteur could not see it. 



In order to explain how fungus mould on cheese, and on 

 boots, mildew on cotton, the hop blight, and the vine disease 

 are caused, Pasteur says, " the air is filled with living invisible 

 germs, which alight in suitable places, and commence to grow 

 immediately." As this germ theory is the main argument 

 adduced by the opponents of spontaneous generation, let us 

 see what it really means. 



