Reproduction of Vegetal Cells. 235 



of much discussion and experiment is, do these live organisms arise 

 from matter previously non-vital, or have they merely inherited their 

 vital functions from organized predecessors? If we affirm the latter 

 alternative it means merely that we have not yet reached the ground 

 upon which the question of the origin of life is to be settled and must 

 look further. Famous scientists have worked at this problem. Their 

 method of procedure has usually been to seclude from contamination 

 with germs which might be in the air, mineral and organic solutions 

 and infusions which were previously boiled to kill any germs they might 

 contain. I shall quote freely from Prof. Tyndall's work on ' ' Floating 

 Matter in the Air," in which he discusses the question. He takes the 

 ground that no infusion or solution of organic or mineral matters has 

 yet been made in which animal or plant life will originate, provided all 

 living germs have been excluded therefrom, even though such infusion 

 were competent to nourish such organisms when . sown in it. He con- 

 cluded that boiling five hours would render such infusion forever incom- 

 petent to originate life. He may be correct, but the difficulty of prov- 

 ing a negative is so great that I doubt if his proofs can be regarded as 

 conclusive. But whether he has proved it or not the point is by no 

 means a conclusive one, one way or another. We are morally certain 

 that the vegetable kingdom originated from the mineral the important 

 question is how. Suppose it to be proved that life will not originate from a 

 boiled hay infusion ; that is something to be sure, but not much to the 

 point. Suppose the contrary be proved, still the question remains un- 

 answered, for we know very well that nature did not have a hay infu- 

 sion to work with before there was any life. In the experiments of 

 Pasteur, Tyndall and others, in which they boiled the infusions with 

 which they worked, in order to destroy adventitious germs, it is evident 

 that they also destroyed by that process whatever organization there 

 might be in the protoplasm of the infusion. That is to say, their pre- 

 cautions insured them not only against the germination of any spores, 

 seeds or germs, either from the air or in the infusion, but it stopped 

 any possible development of life which might otherwise arise as a con- 

 sequence of the organization of the protoplasm. The protoplasm of the 

 infusion may be compared to a watch that has run down. If the works 

 are not injured, when force is put into the watch again by winding it up, 

 it will again show signs of life. So the protoplasm is a machine or 

 many machines together and as long as the cells are uninjured they 

 are liable to the motion we call vitality when the force is applied to 

 them. But if before winding the watch we pull out the main-spring, 

 hair-spring and two or three wheels, we render it tolerably certain that 

 no application of force will give any sort of vital action to the watch ; 

 and in like manner the destruction of the organization of the protoplasm 



