620 



NA TURE 



[Oct. 



with subtle tenuity and extreme divisibility of matter, so the 

 labour, enthusiasm, and perseverance of thirty years, stimulated by 

 the insight of a rare and master mind, and aided by lenses of 

 steadily advancing perfection, has enabled the student of life- 

 forms not simply to become possessed of an inconceivably 

 broader, deeper, and truer knowledge of the great world of 

 visible life, of which he himself is a factor ; but also to open 

 up and penetrate into a world of minute living things so ultimately 

 little that we cannot adequately conceive them, which are, 

 nevertheless, perfect in their adaptations and wonderful in their 

 histories. These organisms, whilst they are the least, are also 

 the lowliest in Nature, and are to our present capacity totally de- 

 void of what is known as organic structure, even when scrutinised 

 with our most powerful and perfect lenses. Now these organisms 

 lie on the very verge and margin of the vast area of what we 

 know as living. They possess the essential properties of life, 

 but in their most initial state. And their numberless billions, 

 springing every moment into existence wherever putrescence 

 appeared, led to the question, "How do they originate?" Do 

 they spring up de novo from the highest point on the area of not- 

 life, which they touch ? Are they, in short, the direct product of 

 some yet uncorrelated force in nature, changing the dead, tiie 

 unorganised, the not-living into definite forms of life? Now 

 this is a profound question, and that it is a difficult one there 

 can be no doubt. But that it is a question for our laboratories 

 is certain. And after careful and prolonged experiment and 

 research the legitimate question to be asked is, Do we find that 

 in our laboratories and in the observed processes of Nature now, 

 that the not-living can be, without the intervention of living 

 things, changed into that which lives ? 



To that question the vast majority of practical biologists answei 

 without hesitancy, No, we have no facts to justify such a con- 

 clusion. Prof. Huxley shall represent them. He says, "Tin 

 properties of living matter distinguish it absolutely from all other 

 kinds of things," and, he continues, "the present state of our 

 knowledge furnishes us with no link between the living and 

 the not-living." Now let us carefully remember that the great 

 doctrine of Charles Darwin has furnished biology with a magni- 

 ficent generalisation : one indeed which stands upon so broad a 

 basis that great masses of detail and many needful interlocking 

 facts are, of necessity, relegated to the quiet workers of the 

 present, and the earnest labourers of the years to come. But it 

 is a doctrine which cannot be shaken. The constant and uni- 

 versal action of variation, the struggle for existence, and the 

 "survival of the fittest," few who are competent to grasp will 

 have the temerity to doubt. And to many, that which lies within 

 it as a doctrine, and forms the fibre of its fabric, is the existence 

 of a continuity, an unbroken stream of unity running from the 

 base to the apex of the entire organic series. The plant and the 

 animal, the lowliest organised and the most complex, the minutes! 

 and the largest, are related to each other so as to constitute oiu 

 majestic organic whole. Now to this splendid continuity prac- 

 tical biology presents no adverse fact. All our most recent and 

 most accurate knowledge confirms it. But the question is, Does 

 this continuity terminate now in the living series, and is there 

 then a break — a sharp, clear discontinuity, and beyond, another 

 realm immeasurably less endowed, known as the realm of 

 not-life ? or, Does what has been taken for the clear-cut boundary 

 of the vital area, when more deeply searched, reveal the presence 

 of a force at present unknown, which changes not-living into the 

 living, and thus makes all nature an unbroken sequence and a 

 continuous whole ? That this is a great question, a question 

 involving large issues, will be seen by all who have familiarised 

 themselves with the thought and fact of our times. But we must 

 treat it purely as a question of science ; it is not a question of 

 how lifeyf/'j-/ appeared upon the earth, it is only a question of 

 whether there is any natural force now at work building not-living 

 matter into living forms. Nor have we to determine whether or 

 not, in the indefinite past, the not-vital elements on the earth, at 

 some point of their highest activity, were endowed with, or 

 became possessed of, the properties of life. 



On that subject there is no doubt. The elements thr- com- 

 pose protoplasm — the physical basis of all living things — are the 

 familiar elements of the world without life. The mystery of life 

 is not in the elements that compose the vital stuff. We know 

 them all, we know their properties. The mystery consists solely 

 in how these elements can be so combined as to acquire the trans- 

 cendent properties of life. Moreover, to the investigator it is not 

 a question of by what means matter dead — without the shimmer of 

 a vital quality — became either slowly or suddenly possessed of the 



properties of life. Enough for us to know that whatever the power 

 that wrought the change, that power was competent, as the issue 

 proves. But that which calm and patient research has to deter- 

 mine is whether matter demonstrably not living can be, without 

 the aid of organisms already living, endowed with the properties 

 of life. Judged of hastily, and apart from the facts, it may appear 

 to some minds that an origin of life from not-life, by sheer 

 physical law, would be a great philosophical gain ; an indefinitely 

 strong support of the doctrine of evolution. If this were so, and, 

 indeed, so far as it is believed to be so, it would speak and 

 does speak volumes in favour of the spirit of science pervading 

 our age. For although the vast majority of biologists in Europe 

 and America accept the doctrine of evolution, they are almost 

 unanimous in their refusal to accept as in any sense competent 

 the reputed evidence of "spontaneous generation"; which de- 

 monstrates, at least, that what is sought by our leaders in science 

 is not the mere support of hypotheses, cherished though they may 

 be: but the truth, the uncoloure J truth, from nature. But it 

 must be remembered that the present existence of what has been 

 called "spontaneous generation," the origin of life de novo to- 

 day, by physical law, is by no means required by the doctrine of 

 evolution. Prof. Huxley, for example, says, "If all living 

 beings have been evolved from pre-existing forms of life, it is 

 enough that a single particle of protoplasm should once have 



appeared upon the globe, as the result of no matter what 

 agency ; any further independent formation of protoplasm would 

 be sheer waste." And why? we may ask. Because one of the 

 most marvellous and unique properties of protoplasm, and the 

 living forms built out of it, is the power to multiply indefinitely 

 and for ever! What need, then, of spontaneous generation? It is 

 certainly true that evidence has been adduced purporting to sup- 

 port, if not establish, the origin in dead matter of the least and 

 low est forms of life. But it evinces no prejudice to say that it 

 is inefficient. For a moment study the facts. The organisms 

 which were used to test the point at issue we.e those known as 

 Septic. The vast majority of these are inexpressibly minute. The 

 smallest of them, indeed, is so small that, as I have said, fifty 

 millions of them, if laid in order, would only fill the one- 

 hundredth part of a cubic inch. Many are relatively larger, but 

 all are supremely minute. Now, these organisms are universally 

 present in enormous numbers, and ever rapidly increasing in all 

 moist putrefactions over the surface of the globe. 



Take an illustration prepared for the purpose and taken direct 

 from nature. A vessel of pure drinking water was taken 

 during the month of July at a temperature of 65° F., and 

 into it was dropped a few shreds of fish muscle and brain. It 

 was left uncovered for twelve hours ; at the end of that time a 

 small blunt rod was inserted in the now somewhat opalescent 

 w ater, and a minute drop taken out and properly placed on the 



