46 SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 



Not one of the many who have joined the ranks of 

 the heterogenists has succeeded in giving us any con- 

 ception of what, according to the doctrine he accepts, 

 really occurs when the non-living matter becomes 

 alive. No one who affirms spontaneous generation 

 has ventured even to theorize upon this. Is it that 

 the supporters of this view are at a loss to conceive 

 what takes place, or are they afraid to commit them- 

 selves to an opinion concerning the rudimentary facts 

 upon which the faith they profess to believe rests ? 

 What can that doctrine be worth the fundamental 

 facts of which are not to be examined ? To maintain , 

 that lifeless matter spontaneously assumes the living 

 state, and not be able to give the faintest notion of 

 what occurs when the change takes place, is not 

 furthering investigation but sowing dogma. No one 

 has any right to assert that the non-living can become 

 living without the influence of the living, because at 

 this present time such a change is against experience 

 and is not conceivable. Marvellous, indeed, must be 

 the change which occurs at the moment when the 

 living imparts to the particles of the non-living its 

 wonderful powers. Anyone who has seen living matter 

 increasing, and moving, and dividing, will feel that it 

 is useless to attempt to divine the nature of the change 

 which takes place. How utterly impossible, therefore, 

 must it be to conceive what may occur upon the 

 hypothesis that the non-living becomes living without 

 the intervention of any living matter whatever. 



