THE PATH OF EVOLUTION 



potentiality thereof, has been and is even yet the sup- 

 port of the adherents to the doctrine of Spontaneous 

 Generation. They thought that in their experiments 

 they had destroyed the germs of life in destroying 

 existing life itself. 



The after vitality of the seeds of even the higher 

 plants when exposed to excessive cold has long been 

 known. It is, though, only within the year 1898 

 that the availability of liquid air has made it pos- 

 sible to submit the seeds of barley, oats, peas, sun- 

 flower and other plants to the low temperature of 

 295- 313 F., or nearly 340 degrees below the 

 freezing point of water; now 1902 even still 

 lower, to that of solid hydrogen, within 24 F. of 

 the absolute zero, with the same result. 



Inasmuch as Life is an existence dependent upon 

 certain changes of energy continually occurring in 

 the organism of living plants or animals, the term 

 alive is not logically or scientifically applicable to a 

 structure wherein no change whatever of energy or 

 of composition occurs for a very long and indefinite 

 period. 



These properties of withstanding the extremes of 

 temperature by the germs of life that would be in- 

 stantly fatal to life itself countenance the thought 

 that, in plants at least, the structure of the germ con- 

 sists of molecules of the chemical atoms united only 

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