THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE 



the panspermatists adduce instances in which 

 no living things have been found, the believers 

 in archebiosis are able to maintain that the 

 failure was due, not to the complete exclusion 

 of germs from without, but to the exclusion of 

 some other physical condition essential to the 

 evolution of living matter. And from this 

 closed circle of rebutting arguments there seem 

 at present to be no means of egress. 



But in so far as the interpretation of Dr. 

 Bastian's experiments is intended to throw light 

 upon the beginnings of life on the earth, there 

 is a manifest anomaly in the use of such liquid 

 menstrua as the infusions of hay, turnip, beef, 

 or urine, which Dr. Bastian ordinarily employs. 

 Whatever archebiosis may occur in such media 

 can hardly be like the process by which living 

 things first came into existence, since the exist- 

 ence of the beef or turnip implies the previous 

 existence of organisms high in the scale. The 

 positive detection of archebiosis in these and 

 similar menstrua will, of course, have an inter- 

 est of its own ; but, as Mr. Spencer well says, 

 " a tenable hypothesis respecting the origin of 

 organic life must be reached by some other 

 clew than that furnished by experiments on 

 decoction of hay and extract of beef." To meet 

 this objection Dr. Bastian has in some exper- 

 iments used only inorganic substances, like 

 phosphate of soda, and the oxalate, tartrate, or 

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