54 



SPONTANEOUS GENERATION 



excluding the entrance of living germs into the closed 

 vessels in which the actual new generation of living 

 organisms has been held to occur. Bearing in mind 

 that living particles far more minute than could have 

 been seen by the magnifying powers employed by 

 Pasteur, Pouchet, and others, undoubtedly have been 

 detected in the closed vessels, as in the observations 

 of Dr. Child, for example, in which I had the ad- 

 vantage of assisting, and that germs are not invariably 

 destroyed by boiling, I would ask, is it not more 

 reasonable to conclude that the living forms discovered 

 were derived from pre-existing germs which obtained 

 access to the fluids in consequence of the arrangements 

 made to exclude them not being quite perfect, than that 

 they had been formed anew from lifeless matter in the 

 image of those very forms which have been unques- 

 tionably developed from predecessors like themselves ? 

 If the view of their formation direct from the non- 

 living be accepted, how are we to account for their 

 exact resemblance in form and actions to beings 

 familiar to us, whose parentage is known ; and for 

 the fact that further growth and multiplication pro- 

 ceed precisely as those operations occur in germs 

 derived from parental organisms ? 



But it has been suggested that although perfect living 

 forms may not be developed spontaneously, perhaps 

 a form from which these may soon be evolved, results 

 in this manner. To argue from facts revealed in the 

 course of observations made with magnifying powers 



