VIII BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS 237 



the generation of bees from the carcase of a dead 

 lion is affirmed, in the Book of Judges, to have 

 been the origin of the famous riddle with which 

 Samson perplexed the Philistines : — 



" Out of the eater came fortli meat, 

 And out of the strong came forth sweetness." 



Against all odds, however, Redi, strong with 

 the strength of demonstrable fact, did splendid 

 battle for Biogenesis; but it is remarkable that 

 he held the doctrine in a sense which, if he had 

 lived in these times, would have infallibly caused 

 him to be classed among the defenders of " spon- 

 taneous generation." " Omne vivum ex vivo," 

 *' no life without antecedent life," aphoristically 

 sums up Redi's doctrine ; but he went no further. 

 It is most remarkable evidence of the philosophic 

 caution and impartiality of his mind, that although 

 he had speculatively anticipated the manner in 

 which grubs really are deposited in jfruits and in 

 the galls of plants, he deliberately admits that the 

 evidence is insufficient to bear him out; and he 

 therefore prefers the supposition that they are 

 generated by a modification of the living substance 

 of the plants themselves. Indeed, he regards 

 these vegetable growths as organs, by means of 

 which the plant gives rise to an animal, and looks 

 upon this production of specific animals as the 

 final cause of the gaUs and of, at any rate, some 

 fruits. And he proposes to explain the occurrence 



