338 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



Since it has been thoroughly settled that all the lower 

 organisms which may be contained in the organic so- 

 lutions are killed when the fluids are raised to a tem- 

 perature of 2i2F, and that no organisms have been 

 known to survive after having remained for thirty 

 minutes in air raised to a temperature of 2,66 F 

 (J30 C C), the boiling of the fluid for a time and the 

 calcination of the air has generally been supposed to 

 be a sufficient precaution to ensure the destruction of 

 all organisms in the experimental media 1 . Experi- 

 ments conducted in this way have yielded negative re- 

 sults to some investigators, though many others have 

 always maintained that in spite of such precautions - 

 calculated to destroy all pre-existing living things 

 they have, after a time, seen multitudes of low organ- 

 isms in their experimental fluids immediately after the 

 flasks have been broken. 



Negative results in these experiments can of course 

 prove little or nothing j they may be explained equally 

 well by either side: either no organisms have been 

 found, because they or all the germs which could give 

 rise to them have been killed; or, as it is just as fair for 

 the evolutionists to say, the absence of organisms can 

 be explained on the supposition, that the fluids employed 

 have not yielded them because of the severely destruc- 



1 The sides of the vessel itself, above the level of the fluid, would, 

 during the whole time, be bathed by the steam given off from the 

 boiling fluid, even if they did not come in contact with it during the 

 process of ebullition, so that any adherent germs would in this way 

 be destroyed. 



