474 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



ratures than those which, on other occasions, are 

 uniformly found to be fatal to all germs with which 

 experiment is made, whether visible or invisible. And, 

 moreover, some would have us give credence to these 

 assumptions and improbabilities, in order to stave 

 off a belief in the occurrence of something which 

 would be thoroughly harmonious with all the best 

 biological knowledge of the day. 



Let the reader finally consider the extent of the 

 contradictions which would be involved by the ac- 

 ceptance of the hypothesis, that the results of my 

 experiments are to be explained by the assumption 

 that some preexisting germs escaped death within the 

 closed flasks, during the fiery ordeal to which they had 

 been submitted. 



It has been previously shown that Bacteria and 

 Torul<e as well as their germs, both visible and in- 

 visible 1 are killed by exposure for ten minutes to a 

 temperature of 140 F, and that they are even destroyed 

 by a heat of I25F, when it is prolonged for four 

 hours. It is, moreover, admitted by all persons who 

 have paid an adequate attention to the subject, that all 

 such low organisms as may be met with in the experi- 

 mental fluids, are unable to resist the destructive in- 

 fluence of boiling water. And yet now, in addition to 

 all the evidence previously detailed, we agai-n find living 

 organisms occurring in closed flasks which have been 



1 See pp. 331-333- 



