XI PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE 385 



course, he expected he would get no infusorial 

 animalcules at all in that infusion ; but, to his 

 great dismay and discomfiture, he found he almost 

 always did get them. 



Furthermore, it has been found that experi- 

 ments made in the manner described above answer 

 well with most infusions ; but that if you fill the 

 vessel with boiled milk, and then stop the neck 

 with cotton-wool, you will have infusoria. So that 

 you see there were two experiments that brought 

 you to one kind of conclusion, and three to an- 

 other ; which was a most unsatisfactory state of 

 things to arrive at in a scientific inquiry. 



Some few years after this, the question began 

 to be very hotly discussed in France. There was 

 M. Pouchet, a professor at Rouen, a very learned 

 man, but certainly not a very rigid experimental- 

 ist. He published a number of experiments of his 

 own, some of which were very ingenious, to show 

 that if you went to work in a proper way, there 

 was a truth in the doctrine of spontaneous genera- 

 tion. Well, it was one of the most fortunate things 

 in the world that M. Pouchet took up this question, 

 because it induced a distinguished French chemist, 

 M. Pasteur, to take up the question on the other 

 side ; and he has certainly worked it out in the 

 most perfect manner. I am glad to say, too, that 

 he has published his researches in time to enable 

 me to give you an account of them. He verified 

 all the experiments which I have just mentioned 



