BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS 117 



tion takes place, all experiments to demon- 

 strate it having failed. A few opinions may 

 now be quoted. 



Tyndall * said : "If you ask me whether Biogenesis 

 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 ... men of science frankly admit their in- 

 ability to point to any satisfactory experi- 

 mental proof that life can be developed save 

 from demonstrable antecedent life." And that 

 he remained of this opinion is shown by a 

 statement four years later : t " I affirm that no 

 shred of trustworthy experimental testimony 

 exists to prove that life in our day has ever 

 appeared independently of antecedent life." 



Huxley, though he thought that spontaneous 

 generation was " a necessary corollary from 

 Darwin's views if legitimately carried out,"J 

 yet admitted that in the controversy between 

 biogenesists and abiogenesists the former were 

 "victorious all along the line." Virchow, Virchow 

 the author of the Cellular Pathology, one of 

 the greatest men of science of the last century, 

 said in 1887 :|| "Never has a living being, or 

 even a living element let us say, a living cell 



* " Belfast Address," 1874. f Nineteenth Century, 1878. 



: Letter to Charles Kingsley, Life and Letters, i.', 352. 



Critiques and Addresses, Presidential Address to 

 British Association. 



II In an address delivered at Wiesbaden. 



