Life and Matter 197 



ages to hatch, so to speak, and the pro- 

 duct to be slain ; and, although some each 

 time may have reproduced germs before 

 slaughter eggs capable of standing the 

 warmth yet a succession of such warm- 

 ings would ultimately be fatal to all, and 

 that without necessarily breaking up the 

 protoplasmic complex aggregates on the 

 existence of which the whole vital potenti- 

 ality depends. 



So far, however, all effort at spontaneous 

 generation has been a failure ; possibly 

 because some essential ingredient or con- 

 dition was omitted, possibly because great 

 lapse of time was necessary. But suppose 

 it was successful ; what then ? We should 

 then be reproducing in the laboratory a 

 process that must at some past age have 

 occurred on the earth ; for at one time the 

 earth was certainly hot and molten and 

 inorganic, whereas now it swarms with life. 



Does that show that the earth generated 

 the life ? By no means ; no more than it 

 need necessarily have generated all the gases 



