
PART .1! 
THE CONDITIONS OF THE PROBLEM AND THE 
MODES OF EXPERIMENTATION 
CHAPTER VI 
EXPERIMENTAL CONDITIONS AS OPPOSED TO NATURAL 
CONDITIONS : THEIR UNFAVOURABLE NATURE 
ERE observation, as we have seen, can never 
settle the question whether Archebiosis does 
or does not take place at the present day. However 
favourable the fluid medium may be deemed, and 
however powerful the microscope with which we 
proceed to examine it, any living matter that might 
actually be born therein would come into existence 
first as ultra-microscopic particles, far too small to 
be recognisable. We should have particles gradually 
appearing in the portion of the fluid under examina- 
tion, which previously were invisible. Yet this is 
the only mode of origin of living matter that the 
Evolutionist can regard as possible. 
It should be obvious to all, therefore, that ob- 
servation alone can never settle the problem. There 
are no possible means of deciding whether the ultra- 
microscopic particles which at last become visible 
have been (a) actual invisible germs of some pre- 
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