THE QUESTION OF SPONTANEOUS GENEEATION. Ill 



warm season. Pasteur was astonished, but resigned 

 himself to the delay. The Commission and the 

 opponents met on June 15. 



The Commission announced, ' that, as the whole 

 dispute turned upon one simple fact, one single 

 experiment ought to be undertaken, which alone 

 would close the discussion.' 



The partisans of spontaneous generation wished 

 nevertheless to go through the entire series of their 

 experiments. In vain the Commission tried to per- 

 suade them that this would make the judgment as 

 long as the discussion itself had been, that all bore 

 upon one fact, and that this fact could be decided by 

 a single experiment. The heterogenists would not 

 listen to this. M. Pouchet and M. Joly withdrew 

 from the contest. 



M. Jamin, an exact and authorised historian of 

 these debates, observed that ' the heterogenists, how- 

 ever they may have covered their retreat, were there- 

 by self -condemned. If they had been sure of the 

 fact which they were solemnly engaged to prove, 

 under penalty of acknowledging themselves defeated 

 they would have hastened to demonstrate it, for it 

 would have been the triumph of their doctrine. People 

 do not allow themselves to be condemned by default 

 except in causes in which they have no confidence.' 



