May 1 8, 1876] 



NATURE 



45 



as are all ferments, from the substance of the organic 

 medium in which they appear." Now panspermitists 

 have always taken for granted that the air is a vast reser- 

 voir of germs, all sorts of which they farther assume are 

 everywhere and at all times being deposited on all solid 

 and liquid substances. In perfect accordance with this 

 opinion it was found that when the must of grapes was 

 boiled to kill any germs that might have already got into 

 it, and kept in a small flask from which the solid particles 

 floating in the air were excluded, no fermentation took 

 place. But, say the supporters of heterogenesis, that 

 may not be because germs could not get in, but 

 because by boiling you killed the vegetative life of 

 the liquid. Well, answers M. Pasteur in triumph, it 

 is all the same if you don't boil it. " Du sue de 

 raisin pris dans I'intdrieur du fruit et du sang retird 

 directement de la circulation se conservent sans altera- 

 tion, si on les preserve de I'influence des poussieres 

 atmospheriques. Dans ce cas, on ne pent pas invoquer 

 la mort, par rebullition, des substances hdmiorganisdes 

 vivantes qui existent dans le liquide." This is the fact 

 which to M. Pasteur's mind ought to put an end to the 

 discussion. The readers of Nature know how he has 

 used it against Dr. Bastian in his letter to Prof Tyndall 

 (Nature, vol. xiii. p. 305), and the uninitiated might well 

 look on this as a decisive blow ; but the end is not yet. 

 It was suggested long ago that in all experiments of this 

 class the air in contact with the liquids described by 

 Pasteur as " I'air pur, privd de ses poussieres flottantes," 

 soon became changed from its normal composition ; it loses 

 its oxygen, the presence of which is held to be an essen- 

 tial condition of the development of the alcoholic ferment. 

 But this is not all. If the air contains the germs of the 

 alcoholic ferment, " Why is it," asked M. Fremy very 

 naturally, " that liquids in which this organism propa- 

 gates and multiplies very rapidly if once introduced do 

 not enter on fermentation when left ex-osed to the air?" 

 Here is M. Pasteur's remarkable answer : " C'est que 

 cette liqueur s'est couverte de moisissures ; la place etant 

 prise par les mycodermes, les ferments n'ont pas pu se 

 ddvelopper." One step more. M. Pasteur has elaborately 

 collected the dust from the atmosphere and carefully sown 

 it in various prepared mediums without, however, once 

 succeeding in obtaining alcoholic fermentation, although 

 he sowed this dust in a liquid most suitable for the deve- 

 lopment of the alcoholic ferment. How has this awkward- 

 looking fact been met by the advocates of the g rm 

 theory ? Very simply, thus : Well it would appear, they 

 observe, that after all the germs of the alcoholic ferment 

 are not in the atmosphere, but the ferment always comes 

 from germs nevertheless ; the germs are on the surface 

 of the grapes themselves. And M. Pasteur is ready with 

 an experiment to prove it. Of course M. Fremy is 

 equally ready with experiments and ai-guments to prove 

 that it is not so. 



Our space will not permit us to pursue the subject 

 further. The morsel of the discussion which we have 

 been able very imperfectly to present may, we hope, 

 enable the general reader to perceive that we are still 

 some way from that settled peace which follows victory. 

 We make no pretence to have stated M. Fremy's case ; 

 the subject is intensely interesting, and we heartily re- 

 commend his book as a model of scientific discussion. 



In point of scientific temper he has altogether the advan- 

 tage of his brilliant antagonist. 



The following notice of Dr. Bastian's " Evolution and 

 the Origin of Life " was written and put in proof a long 

 time ago. It would have never been published, but for 

 the fresh interest that Prof. Tyndall has given to the 

 question. 



It fell to the writer of this notice to review Dr. Bastian's 

 "Beginnings of Life" {Examiner, Aug. 31, Sept. 14 and 

 28) on its publication in 1872. Our first words were 

 these : — " One after another our ablest scientific workers 

 are bringing the fruits of their labours and dedicating 

 them as it were, humbly, to that profound philosophy of 

 evolution of which Mr. Herbert Spencer may be said to 

 be the prophet. In the work before us Dr. Bastian has 

 attacked the enemies of evolution in what they have 

 hitherto considered the very citadel of their strength. 

 His chief point is that living organisms are evolved out 

 of dead matter, containing neither spore nor germ, nor 

 any such thing." Such was, and remains, our opinion 

 concerning the relation of Dr. Bastian's researches to the 

 theory of evolution. 



It is part of the doctrine of evolution that living matter 

 was once at least evolved from dead matter — from dead 

 inorganic matter. Is there, then, or rather ought there to 

 be, any inherent improbability in the supposition that 

 living matter is now evolved from dead organic matter.? 

 Unless the conditions of life- evolution are known, and 

 are known not to exist in the present state of our globe, 

 the probability is surely the other way. Now the essential 

 conditions of the process are, and will ceitainly remain for 

 a very long time, one of Nature's darkest secrets. Why 

 then do certain evolutionists so obstinately resist the 

 assertion that Archebiosis has actually been known to 

 take place ? We cannot enlighten our readers on this 

 point ; nobody has ever been able to say why Dr. Bastian 

 must be wrong. 



At the same time, in trying to force evolutionists either 

 to accept his conclusions or to stand convicted of incon- 

 sistency, Dr. Bastian may perhaps be held guilty of a 

 little straining. Though we believe with Dr. Bastian 

 that life-evolution is an every-day process, still we cannot 

 agree with him that " the existence of such lowest and 

 simplest organisms as the microscope everywhere reveals 

 at the present day, is quite irreconcilable with the posi- 

 tion that life-evolution has not occurred since an epoch 

 inconceivably remote in time." To put somewhat strongly 

 the reply of those who do not follow Dr. Bastian to this 

 conclusion, his contention here is not unlike the reasoning 

 of those critics of Mr. Darwin who argue that if men 

 have been developed from monkeys there ought now to 

 be no monkeys, for the plain reason that they ought to 

 have all developed into men. The existence of lowest 

 organisms may perhaps be irreconcilable with the posi- 

 tion that life-evolution has not occurred since an epoch 

 inconceivably remote in time, when coupled with Dr. 

 Bastian's belief that in living matter there is " an internal 

 principle or tendency leading to progressive complexity 

 of development," whereby every living thing is kept con- 

 stantly on the stretch for an opportunity to spring forward 

 to a more complex structure. But this conception of an 

 inherent principle of organisation, which, we must con- 

 fess, appears to us rather ill-defined and unscientific, is 



