50 E VOL UTION AND DOGMA, 



These questions were taken up and answered in 

 the epoch-making researches of that prince of inves- 

 tigators, the universally revered and world-renowned 

 Pasteur. He demonstrated that in every instance 

 life originates from antecedent life omne vivum ex 

 vivo that the various forms of fermentation, putre- 

 faction and disease are not only caused by the pres- 

 ence and action of certain microbes, but that these 

 microbes, as well as organisms of a superior organ- 

 ization, are invariably produced by beings like them- 

 selves ; that, in all cases, like proceeds from like, 

 and that, consequently, spontaneous generation 

 is, to use his own characterization of it, a " chi- 

 mera." 



Is the discussion finally closed? Has the theory 

 of abiogenesis received its coup de grdce? At the 

 present moment Pasteur and his school are un- 

 doubtedly lords of the ascendant. Will they always 

 remain so? Time alone can answer this question. 

 In the opinion of such men as Pouchet and Bastian, 

 two of Pasteur's ablest antagonists, the question, so 

 far as experiment goes, is at best settled only pro- 

 visionally, and the same old controversy may break 

 out any day, as it has so often broken out since the 

 time of Redi, when it was declared to be definitively 

 closed. 



But, whatever be the last word of science respect- 

 ing abiogenesis, the discussion of the subject has led 

 to the discovery of many new facts of inestimable 

 importance, and has vastly extended our view of 

 the domain of animated nature. It has disclosed 

 to our vision a world before unknown, the world 



