
284 THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE 
the thermal death-point of living organisms and 
their germs, together with my new experiments 
with saline solutions, the evolution of living things 
is capable of occurring even under such unfavour- 
able conditions. 
We are bound to conclude, in fact, that there 
must be in nature a distinct proclivity to the forma- 
tion of living matter. We are almost driven to such 
a conclusion when we see the freedom with which 
it can be produced in a simple inoculated solution 
of ammonium tartrate in distilled water (see p. 235). 
There we have the growth and multiplication of 
very varied micro-organisms occurring under condi- 
tions so simple as to be almost incredible. Now, 
again, we are confronted with facts hard to be 
believed and difficult to understand—yet incontest- 
able—when we find varied forms of Bacteria and 
Torulz appearing plentifully in hermetically sealed 
tubes which have been submitted to a scathing 
degree of heat—far more than is sufficient to 
destroy all other known forms of like kind. They 
are not there at first after the tube has been 
heated ; though after a time they are to be found 
in abundance. But they are invariably motionless, 
and must, therefore, have developed in the sites 
where they are found. 
The wonder too is enormously increased when 
we think of the simplicity of the media in which 
this life-giving process occurs. The simplicity of 
the conditions, in fact, for the ‘‘origination” of life 
in my latest experiments, is only equalled by the 
simplicity of the conditions sometimes sufficient for 
