PROFESSOR VIRCHOW AND EVOLUTION 425 



lessons of caution which he inculcates were exemplified 

 by me, years before his voice was heard upon this subject, 

 has been proved in the foregoing pages. In point of fact, 

 if he had preceded me instead of following me, and if my 

 desire had been to incorporate his wishes in my words, 

 I could not have accomplished this more completely. It 

 is possible, moreover, to draw the coincident lines still 

 further, for most of what he has said about spontaneous 

 generation might have been uttered by me. I share his 

 opinion that the theory of evolution in its complete form 

 involves the passage from matter which we now hold to 

 be inorganic into organized matter; in other words, in- 

 volves the assumption that at some period or other of the 

 earth's history there occurred what would be now called 

 "spontaneous generation." I agree with him that "the 

 proofs of it are still wanting. " "Whoever," he says, "re- 

 calls to mind the lamentable failure of all the attempts 

 made very recently to discover a decided support for the 

 generatio cequivoca in the lower forms of transition from 

 the inorganic to the organic world will feel it doubly se- 

 rious to demand that this theory, so ^utterly discredited, 

 should be in any way accepted as the basis of all our views 

 of life. " I hold with Yirchow that the failures have been 

 lamentable, that the doctrine is utterly discredited. But 

 my position here is so well known that I need not dwell 

 upon it further. 



With one special utterance of Professor Yirchow his 

 translator connects me by name. "I have no objection," 

 observes the Professor, "to your saying that atoms of car- 

 bon "also possess mind, or that in their connection with 

 the Plastidule company they acquire mind; only / do not 

 know how I am to perceive this." This is substantially 



