CHAPTER V. 



THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE. 

 Spontaneous Generation. 



OUR next inquiry is concerning the teachings of 

 the Fathers and the Schoolmen in respect of 

 the origin and nature of life, and what views one 

 may, consistently with revealed truth and Catholic 

 Dogma, entertain regarding this all-important topic. 

 These are questions, as is well known, in which evo- 

 lutionists of all classes, monistic, agnostic, and 

 theistic, are specially interested, and questions, con- 

 sequently, which cannot be passed over in silence. 



The low.er forms of life, as we learned in the 

 beginning of this work, were supposed by Greek and 

 mediaeval philosophers to have originated sponta- 

 neously from the earth, or from putrefying organic 

 matter. From the time of Aristotle to that of Redi, 

 the doctrine of spontaneous generation was accepted 

 without question, and it is scarcely yet a generation 

 since the brilliant experiments of Pasteur drove abi- 

 ogenesis from its last stronghold. 



For over two thousand years the most extrava- 

 gant notions were prevalent regarding certain of the 

 smaller animals. Virgil, in his famous episode of 

 Aristaeus, tells us of the memorable discovery of the 

 old Arcadian for the production of bees from the 

 tainted gore of slain bullocks. But this is but an echo 



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