
FINAL DECISIVE EXPERIMENTS  — 289 
a state of activity, suchas would be seen if we had 
really to do with a case of infection. 
The similarity in the mode of origin of the 
Bacteria and Torule through the flakes of silica 
in my recent experiments, to that which occurs in 
these processes of heterogenesis is therefore very 
striking—we have always the minute motionless 
specks, gradually becoming visible and taking on 
characteristic shapes, just as crystals do as they 
separate from their parent media, and just as the 
doctrine of evolution would seem to require. In 
reference to this fact of the new-born units developing 
into well-known forms—which some find so difficult 
to understand—the following remarks, made else- 
where, may be quoted :—! 
‘There would be, in fact, just as much reason why the new- 
born organism should develop into the form of one already in exist- 
ence, as there would be that the crystal of sulphate of soda which 
forms to-day in a solution of that substance should resemble that 
which formed under similar conditions twelve months or a hundred 
years previously. He who believes in the uniformity of natural 
phenomena could anticipate no other result. Living matter, 
which we believe to be now produced de novo, speedily shapes 
itself into some well-known form; and so also new crystalline 
matter, which may have been produced synthetically by the 
chemist in his laboratory, falls habitually into one or other of the 
known crystalline systems.” 
“It seems, therefore, no more wonderful that the simple Mould 
that develops de novo to-day should resemble another which 
develops from the spore of a pre-existing organism, than that a 
crystal forming independently to-day in a saline solution should 
resemble another which is capable of arising by the growth of a 
fragment detached from a similar pre-existing crystal. In all these 

1 & 
The Nature and Origin of Living Matter,” 1905, p. 287. 
T 
