
2{2 THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE 
fidence in its truth. So far as it went, therefore, 
his evidence on this part of the subject was entirely 
confirmatory of mine. Indeed, in the beginning of 
1876, Professor Tyndall’s views on this important 
subject were as much opposed to those of M. 
Pasteur as mine were ; we both disbelieved on good 
evidence, as we thought, in the survival of germs 
in boiling neutral or faintly alkaline fluids. 
At this time M. Pasteur’s positive results with 
some of such fluids would seem to have been for- 
gotten by Professor Tyndall. At all events, not 
being able himself to get evidence that any boiled 
and guarded fluids would ferment, he attempted to 
throw discredit upon me because [ had obtained 
such results. Forgetful of Pasteur’s experiments 
above referred to, and apparently unaware of the 
confirmation which my experimental facts had 
obtained at the hands of many independent workers, 
he triumphantly brought forward a ‘cloud of 
witnesses” to convince the Royal Society and the 
world of science generally, as well as others, that 
my particular results in which fermentation had been 
made to show itself in boiled and guarded fluids 
were due to experimental errors into which it was 
conjectured that I had easily fallen, since it required 
all Professor Tyndall’s great skill and long experi- 
ence to avoid them. He strenuously denied that a 
1 He says (doc. ct. p. 42) in experiments made with “ urine, mutton 
beef, pork, hay, turnip, tea, coffee, hops, haddock, sole, salmon, cod- 
fish, turbot, mullet, herring, eel, oyster, whiting, liver, kidney, hare, 
rabbit, fowl, pheasant, grouse,” amounting in all to several hundreds, 
five minutes’ boiling was always found sufficient to produce complete 
sterilisation. 
