SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 31 



the earth, it merely implies the origin of Monera from 

 inorganic carbon compounds. When animated bodies first 

 appeared on our planet, previously without life, there must, 

 in the first place, have been formed, by a process purely 

 chemical, from purely inorganic carbon combinations, that 

 very complex nitrogenized carbon compound which we call 

 plasson, or " primitive slime," and which is the oldest material 

 substance in which all vital activities are embodied. In 

 the lowest depths of the sea such homogeneous amorphous 

 protoplasm probably still lives, in its simplest character, under 

 the name of Bathybius. 137 Each individual living particle 

 of this structureless mass is called a Moneron. The oldest 

 Monera originated in the sea by spontaneous generation, 

 just as crystals form in the matrix. This assumption is 

 required by the demand of the human understanding for 

 causality. For when, on the one hand, we reflect that the 

 whole inorganic history of the earth proceeds in accordance 

 with mechanical laws and without any intervention by 

 creative power, and when, on the other hand, we consider 

 that the entire organic history of the world is also de- 

 termined by similar mechanical laws ; when we see that no 

 supernatural interference by a creative power is needed for 

 the production of the various organisms, then it is certainly 

 quite inconsistent to assume ^uch supernatural creative, 

 interference for the first production of life upon our globe. 

 At all events we, as investigators of nature, are bound 

 at least to attempt a natural explanation. 



At present, the much agitated question of spontaneous 

 generation appears very intricate, because a large number 

 of very different, and in part quite absurd, conceptions are 

 included under the term "spontaneous generation," and 



