CHAPTER VI 



BIOGENESIS AND ABIOGENESIS HISTORY OF THE CON- 

 TROVERSY DR. BASTIAN'S VIEWS WHERE DID LIV- 

 ING MATTER COME FROM THE CATHOLIC POSITION 



THOSE who have followed the facts laid down in 

 the last chapters will now be able to ascertain the 

 foundation on which are constructed the four 

 axioms mentioned in chapter II. : Omne vivum 

 ex viw, omnis cellula ex cellula, omnis nucleus e nucleo, 

 omne chromosoma e chromosomate. Something how- 

 ever still remains to be said respecting the first 

 axiom, for after centuries of discussion the question 

 of biogenesis or abiogenesis still seems unsettled to 

 some. 



Looking at things as we see them it is not 

 wonderful that men should have believed, from the Abiogenes 

 time of Aristotle onwards down to the seventeenth 

 century, that living things could come directly from 

 non-living things, that reptiles and worms were 

 bred from the mud of rivers and that decaying 

 flesh produced maggots. Harvey first proclaimed 

 the contrary doctrine, and Eedi, an Italian physician, 

 showed in 1698 that the maggots found in putrid 

 meat had not arisen from the meat but from the 



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