266 NATURE AND LIFE. 



gravest of these objections, it must be said, have applied 

 to problems which do not concern the very foundation of 

 the dispute between the panspermic system and its op- 

 posite. For instance, Tr6cul, the skillful and noted microg- 

 rapher, B6champ, and others, have proved that Pasteur 

 mistakes with regard to the evolutions and transformations 

 undergone by microscopic beings in fermenting media. 

 Pasteur has certainly made more than one mistake on this 

 subject, and there probably does exist between certain fer- 

 ment-corpuscles a closer relationship than is supposed at 

 the laboratory of the Normal School ; but that does not in 

 the least alter the fundamental character of the theory. 

 Attention is also called to the fact that corpuscles with a 

 determinate structure can be produced complete, without, 

 germs, in some liquids. No doubt, this is true, but only 

 on condition that the liquids are living ones. No doubt, the 

 cambium of vegetables, the blastema of animals, and gen- 

 erally all protoplasmic fluids, are fertile hatching-fields for 

 the spontaneous development of the cells and fibres of living 

 tissues. It is thus that the first elements of the embryo 

 show themselves in the animal ovule. And in this respect 

 the labors of Robin, Tre'cul, Onimus, Legros, and a great 

 number of other observers, are decisive ; but life is the 

 property of these protoplasms ; they depend upon an or- 

 ganized system. Tn the depths of the organism, and 

 shielded from the air, they toil at the creation of micro- 

 scopic corpuscles. Place them in contact with purified air, 

 in Pasteur's glass globes, and then they would be barren. 



The last objection Pasteur has to meet is, that, if the 

 germs of all these microscopic vegetable and animal lives 

 are in the atmosphere, they should be discovered and rec- 

 ognized there. But, in examining the dust of the air 

 microscopically, we do not by any means detect all the rudi- 

 ments of that infinitely minute flora and fauna whose exist- 

 ence is attested by the fermentation and putrefactions of 



