204 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



ignorance of its latent powers, and notwithstanding our 

 professed reverence for its Creator, liave hitherto covered 

 with opprobrium, the promise and potency of all terres- 

 trial Life. 



If you ask me whether there exists the least evidence 

 to prove that any form of life can be developed out of 

 matter, without demonstrable antecedent life, my reply 

 is that evidence considered perfectly conclusive by many 

 has been adduced; and that were some of us who have 

 pondered this question to follow a very common example, 

 and accept testimony because it falls in with our belief, 

 we also should eagerly close with the evidence referred 

 to. But there is in the true man of science a desire 

 stronger than the wish to have his beliefs upheld; namely, 

 the desire to have them true. And this stronger wish 

 causes him to reject the most plausible support, if he has 

 reason to suspect that it is vitiated by error. Those to 

 whom I refer as having studied this question, believing 

 the evidence offered in favor of "spontaneous generation" 

 to be thus vitiated, cannot accept it. They know full well 

 that the chemist now prepares from inorganic matter a 

 vast array of substances, which were some time ago re- 

 garded as the sole products of vitality. They are inti- 

 mately acquainted with the structural power of matter, as 

 evidenced in the phenomena of crystallization. They can 

 justify scientifically their belief in its potency, under the 

 proper conditions, to produce organisms. But, in reply 

 to your questions, they will frankly admit their inability 

 to point to any satisfactory experimental proof that life 

 can be developed, save from demonstrable antecedent life. 

 As already indicated, they draw the line from the highest 

 organisms through lower ones down to the lowest; and 



