1 98 POPULAR LECTURES AND ADDRESSES. 



spontaneous generation, as you have heard from 

 my predecessor in the Presidential chair. Careful 

 enough scrutiny has, in every case up to the 



<-nt day, discovered life as antecedent to life. 

 Dead matter cannot become living without coming 

 under the influence of matter previously alive. 

 This seems to me as sure a teaching of science as 

 the law of gravitation. I utterly repudiate, as 

 opposed to all philosophical uniform itarianism, the 

 assumption of "different meteorological con- 

 ditions " that is to say, somewhat different vicissi- 

 tudes of temperature, pressure, moisture, gaseous 

 atmosphere to produce or to permit that to take 

 place by force or motion of dead matter alone, 

 which is a direct contravention of what seems to us 

 biological law. I am prepared for the answer, 

 " ( hir code of biological law is an expression of our 

 " ignorance as well as of our knowledge." And 



v yes : search for spontaneous generation out 



of inorganic materials; let any one not satisfied 



with the purely negative testimony of which we 



have now so much against it, throw himself into 



inquiry. Such investigations as those of 



