THE ORIGIN OF LIFE i6i 



life originated in water. Anaximander thought 

 that mud, " the moist element," as it was evapor- 

 ated by the sun, was the source of organic life. 

 Aristotle, in the true Aristotelian manner, affirmed 

 that " every dry body becoming moist, and every 

 moist body becoming dry, engenders animals." 



All down the centuries, a belief in the sponta- 

 neous generation of life persisted in a gross, some- 

 times in a subtle, form. 



In the sixteenth century the belief assumed 

 wild forms. A learned Italian Jesuit, Philippe 

 Buonanni, for instance, taught that when certain 

 timber wood rotted in the sea it produced worms ; 

 which, again, produced butterflies ; which, again, 

 produced birds. And Van Helmont, a very 

 eminent physicist, gives the following recipe for 

 producing scorpions : — 



" Scoop out a hole in a brick. Put into it some 

 sweet basil, crushed. Lay a second brick upon 

 the first so that the hole may be perfectly covered. 

 Expose the two bricks to the sun, and at the end 

 of a few days the smell of the sweet basil, acting 

 as a ferment, will change the herb into real 

 scorpions." 



In the eighteenth century, after Redi had shown 

 that maggots were not developed in meat unless 

 flies were allowed to deposit their eggs in the 

 tissues, the belief in spontaneous generation began 



II 



