32 THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE 
and Spencer were largely influenced by Huxley, 
who, as was shown by his Presidential Address to 
the British Association in 1870, was similarly in- 
fluenced by the experimental work of Pasteur. 
Throughout Europe and America, indeed, upon 
the strength of the results and views expressed by 
Pasteur, there was at this time a very strong 
tendency to regard ‘‘spontaneous generation” as 
an altogether exploded doctrine. It was confidently 
dismissed by Pasteur both then and in succeeding 
years as a “chimera,” and this he did on grounds 
which never varied from 1862 up to the date of his 
last writings on the subject in 1877. 
The present writer first began to work at this 
subject in 1869, and soon found reason for ques- 
tioning the validity of this adverse verdict and 
recognising the lack of finality about M. Pasteur’s 
conclusions. Professor Tyndall entered upon the 
question with great zeal from 1874-1877 ; but he did 
not attempt to alter in any material way the reasons 
alleged by Pasteur against the occurrence of Arche- 
biosis. To this day, therefore, and ever since 1862, 
the adverse evidence has been based upon the work 
of Pasteur, as formulated in the memoir of that date, 
and repeated by him in a controversy with myself, 
resulting in an abortive commission of the French 
Academy, in 1877. 
The view that ‘‘spontaneous generation” was a 
“chimera,” so loudly proclaimed by Pasteur and so 
widely echoed, was based by him upon three princi- 
pal inductions from his experimental work, together 
with three corollaries severally deduced therefrom. 
