THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 269 



According to Spallanzani, on the other hand, all 

 things earth, air, and water, bodies organic and bodies 

 inorganic were saturated with c germs/ or potential 

 living things. This notion was not quite so extrava- 

 gant as that of Bonnet, though it was equally without 

 legitimate foundation in the actual knowledge of the 

 time 1 . It was put forward to explain certain facts 

 and the theory itself was then supposed to be sub- 

 stantiated by the occurrence of these same facts. This 

 was the vicious circle by means of which the hypo- 

 thesis was supported. It was believed in only too 

 readily by the majority, because it enabled them to stave 

 off for a period the acceptance of views which the state 

 of science and philosophy at that time rendered it diffi- 

 cult for them to accept. Spallanzani thought that the 

 air carried with it everywhere the germs of myriads of 

 elementary organisms ; or, at all events, some Q pr'mcipes 

 pre'organhfc' invisible and ideal, which we can only 

 compare with the disembodied spirits whose existence 

 is postulated by the Pythagorean philosophers. 



' Morte carent animse : semperque, priore relicta 

 Sede, novis domibus habitant, vivuntque receptse.' 



Spallanzani, nevertheless, was not, on all occasions, 



them, to the assertion that the original germ of every species contained 

 within it all the countless individuals which in process of time might 

 issue from it ; and this in no metaphysical " potential " guise, but as 

 actual boxed-up existences (emboites] ; so that Adam and Eve were in 

 the most literal sense progenitors of the whole human race, and con- 

 tained their progeny already shaped within them, awaiting the great 

 accoucheur, Time.' (' Fortnightly Review,' June, 1868, p. 593.) 



