THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



vivum ex vivo is taken as finally proved, as a result 

 of the great controversy of thirty years ago, in 

 which Tyndall, Huxley, Pasteur, and Dr. Bastian 

 engaged. It is thought that the "myth of spon- 

 taneous generation" has been forever refuted, 

 and omne vivum ex vivo forever established. This 

 is what I was taught, not so many years ago, in 

 class-rooms both of zoology and botany; and it 

 is so taught everywhere. But lately the matter 

 has come up again : Sir Oliver Lodge and Professor 

 Ray Lankester have fought a drawn battle in the 

 Times; and Dr. Bastian has published a remarkable 

 book 1 and made most important contributions to 

 Nature; and we may appropriately ask ourselves 

 what was really proved thirty years ago. It was 

 shown, beyond dispute, that when infusions of hay, 

 or other substances which customarily came to 

 swarm with life in a few days, were efficiently 

 boiled, and then protected from contamination, 

 no life ever developed in them. The boiling had 

 killed every germ of life in the infusion; and for- 

 evermore it must remain dead, unless living germs 

 were brought to it from outside vivum could 

 only be ex vivo; spontaneous generation was a 

 myth. 



Now let us see how this view, the scientific or- 

 thodoxy of to-day, agrees with the opinions of the 

 past. We shall find that, however difficult it may 

 be to hold when we ask the origin of the -first living 



1 Studies in Heter agenesis, 1904. 

 107 



