UNEXPLAINED ORIGINS. 35 
gives rise to maggots. The origin of these grubs was 
referred to the power of “spontaneous generation.” When 
the Italian naturalist Redi discovered that an exclusion 
of flies from meat was all that was necessary to prevent 
the production of grubs, the doctrine of spontaneous gen- 
eration was thoroughly upset, for his time at least. But 
the microscope revealed in “pure” water the presence of 
thousands of small creatures, the infusoria. Again 
spontaneous generation was appealed to in order to ex- 
plain their presence. But the famous experiments of 
Pasteur (related by Huxley in his lectures on The Origin 
of Species, Lecture III), proved conclusively that steril- 
ized water will not produce living forms when the germs 
floating everywhere about in the air are excluded... Since 
that time all men of science agree that there is no such 
thing demonstrable as spontaneous generation. It has 
become an axiom that “Life only comes from life.” 
But how the first germs of life originated, is a question 
for which there is no answer. Huxley admits: “Of the 
causes which led to the origination of living matter it 
may be said that we know absolutely nothing.” “The 
present state of knowledge furnishes us with no link 
between the living and the not living.” 
However, while spontaneous generation is “absolutely 
inconceivable” (Darwin), and while no experiments 
made on dead matter have ever produced living (plant 
and animal) matter, life must have originated at some 
time from non-life according to the evolutionary hypothe- 
sis. The theory assumes that at some time the globe was 
in an incandescent stage. At that time there could not 
have been any life on our earth. But as the earth cooled, 
it is held that by some chemico-electric action (electric 
force acting upon elements in favorable combinations), 
inert, lifeless matter became endowed with the property 
which we call life, and this original living substance is 
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