NO SPONTANEOUS GENERATION 



that of their ultimate destruction, are questions still 

 unsolved. 



As already mentioned, Haeckle placed these low 

 organisms, especially the amoebic forms, in the order 

 "Monera," being neither plant nor animal. He 

 considered them to be transition steps between the 

 inorganic and the organic world and as having their 

 origin in spontaneous generation. This doctrine, which 

 in earlier times was generally held, was strongly advo- 

 cated by him in his " Morphologic der Organ ismen," 

 published in 1866, and in his later writings. The 

 lapse of over thirty years since then, and the inde- 

 fatigable investigations of hundreds of learned and 

 skillful men, have failed in ever developing life 

 where life did not previously exist. That in past 

 geologic ages conditions permitting it may have 

 existed which do not now exist, is possible ; but it is 

 opposed to all methods of true science to postulate 

 as a necessary truth that of which observation and 

 experiment has failed to demonstrate the possibility ! 



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