THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 367 



moisture and maintained at a temperature of 100- 

 IO4F. Under these conditions, the customary exhala- 

 tions and evaporations of fluid cannot take place from 

 the egg, so that the embryo dies whilst lower organisms 

 appear l . 



The facts narrated in this communication, and mul- 

 titudes of others of a similar nature that might have 

 been quoted, constitute a body of evidence thoroughly 

 harmonious with the results of my previous observations 

 and experiments. And yet this interpretation will doubt- 

 less be, for a time, rejected. Many of those who have 

 wholly cast on one side the old developmental theories 

 of Haller and Bonnet, still confidently pin their faith 

 to a derivative doctrine. And when we find this 

 doctrine of Panspennism advocated not only by pro- 

 fessed vitalists, but by some leading evolutionists, 

 the inconsistency is notably increased. They have 

 never attempted to explain why those natural life- 

 evolving laws, whose original existence they postulate, 

 should have ceased to operate in the present day. They 

 assume the omnipresence of germs; they assume that 

 such hypothetical germs can exist for an indefinite 

 period in a latent state; that they can resist degrees 

 of heat which are fatal to all known germs ; and that 



1 Almost similar facts may be cited concerning plants. Attempts at 

 direct inoculation with parasitic fungi, as Dr. Barry found, are far from 

 being so successful as might have been expected. See some remarks on 

 this subject in 'Brit. Med. Journal,' April 20, 1872, p. 419. 



