THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 163 



have taken it full of the elements suited for the 

 development of inferior beings. And I wait, I 

 watch, I question it, begging it to recommence 

 for me the beautiful spectacle of the first creation. 

 But it is dumb, dumb ever since these experiments 

 were begun several years ago ; it is dumb because I 

 have kept from it the only thing man cannot pro- 

 duce from the germs which float in the air — from 

 Life ; for life is a germ, and a germ life.' Never 

 will the doctrine of spontaneous generation recover 

 from the mortal blow of this simple experiment." 



Such was the weight of Pasteur's authority 

 that from that day to this very few have ventured 

 to suggest that life still can and does arise from 

 dead matter. Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Spencer 

 all believed that life must at one time have origin- 

 ated from dead matter — that it was the product of 

 " the free play of the forces of atoms and mole- 

 cules," but under conditions which are no longer 

 existent, and which cannot be reproduced ; and 

 most thinkers of recent years have held the same 

 opinion. 



Still the question is not settled, and there may 

 be said to be still three theories in the field : — 



(i) That life has originated, and still does 

 originate^ from dead matter. 



(2) That life did, aeons ago, originate from dead 

 matter, but that it no longer can do so. 



