106 THE CELL DOCTRINE. 



self the champion of spontaneous generation, and he 

 maintains, also, that the formation of living beings 

 out of inanimate matter by the conversion of physi- 

 cal and chemical into vital modes of force, is a mat- 

 ter of daily and hourly occurrence. Mr. Grove says 

 that "in a voltaic battery and its effects we have 

 the nearest approach man has made to an experi- 

 mental organism," and that in the human body we 

 have chemical action, electricity, magnetism, heat, 

 light, motion, and possibly other forces " contribut- 

 ing, in the most complex manner, to sustain that 

 result of combined action we call life." 



We trust it is not necessary to state that it has 

 been attempted to state these views, not in a spirit of 

 criticism, but fairly and justly; our object in this 

 connection being simply to exhibit the present state 

 of the subject as viewed from all standpoints. And 

 in the case of this class of eminent observers we have 

 based our account almost entirely on what we believe 

 the latest exposition of the subject, viz., Prof. Hux- 

 ley's lecture, while we have included, also, such 

 quotations of pregnant sentences of other observers 

 of the same class, as seemed essential to complete- 

 ness and consistent with brevity. 



THE AUTHOR'S VIEWS. 



As the result of a careful comparison of the views 

 of other observers, and of personal observation, ex- 

 tending over a period of several years, chiefly in 

 the direction of human physiology and pathology, 

 the author has been led to adopt views, which, in 

 the main, correspond with those of Dr. Beale. There 



