Fune 30, 1870 | 
NATURE 
175 
nold good in’the birth of crystals and of organisms respectively. * 
Those who hold opposite opinions need only suppose that 
molecules of ‘‘organic” matter, or some such complex molecules, 
may aggregate and arrange themselves after certain modes to 
produce a Living thing—just as a crystal, endowed with its 
particular properties, is producible by other modes of aggregation 
—because with them Life is considered to be a product of mole- 
cular collocation and of molecular change. And ifthe ‘‘ vitalist” 
wishes to establish the existence of a more fundamental difference 
between crystals and organisms than we are prepared to grant, 
seeing that the scientific evidence seems to be against him, it 
remains for him at least to endeavour to show good grounds for 
the establishment of such difference. 
Tt should be remembered, then, that in the present state of 
science all theoretical considerations seem favourable to the views 
of the evolutionists, and that the only thing which can be op- 
posed to them is the assvnzftion that those processes of reproduc- 
tion which take place amongst all known varieties of living 
things are the o/y processes by which such living things can 
arise. But now, already, by means of microscopical evidence 
alone, it has been shown that Living things may arise by a pro- 
cess of heterogenesis—not as products of a pre-existing organism 
like themselves, but by a process altogether different from those 
which have been hitherto supposed to be general. And it is 
worthj remembering, as we have before pointed out, that the 
supposed coalescence of invisible molecules and the changes 
which lead to the production of the minutest living monad in 
organic solutions, if they could be shown to be true, would 
not be one whit more startling than those very changes which, 
before disbelieved in, can now be easily shown to take place 
in the “proligerous pellicle.” Have we not seen that out of 
a mere fortuitous aggregation of living particles, and the sub- 
sequent metamorphoses taking place therein, organisms appear 
which are much larger, and of a much higher type than those 
_which preceded them, although such a mode of origin was for- 
 merly regarded almost as “impossible ” ? 
* I will here make two quotations in order to show that the opinions of 
two of our leading scientific men (many others might have been quoted) 
are not at all opposed to the comparisons I have been instituting. They 
both, in fact, declare emphatically that the phenomena of Life are pheno- 
mena of molecular physics. 
In his address to the Mathematical and Physical Section of the British 
Association in 1868, Prof. Tyndall, as president, speaking of a grain of corn, 
said :—‘‘ But what has built together the molecules of the corn? I have 
already said, concerning crystalline architecture, that you may, if you please, 
consider the atoms and molecules to bz placed in position by a power external 
to themselves. ‘The same hypothesis is open to you now. But if in the case 
of crystals you have rejected this notion of an external architect, I think you 
are bound to reject it now, and to conclude that the molecules of the corn are 
self-posited by the forces with which they act upon each other. It would be 
poor philosophy to invoke an external agent in the one case and to reject it in 
the other. - But I must go still further, and affirm that in the eye 
of science the animal body is just as much the product of molecular force as 
the stalk and ear of corn, or as the crystal of salt or of sugar. Every 
particle that enters into the composition of a muscle, a nerve, or a bone, has 
been placed in its position by molecular force. And unless the existence of 
law in these matters be denied, and the element of caprice introduced, we 
must conclude that, given the relation of any molecule of the body to its en- 
vironment, its position in the body might be predicted. Our difficulty 1s not 
with the guadzty of the problem, but with its comeplexity.” (Pp. 4 and 5.) 
Prof. Huxley, again, in his article on ‘‘ Protoplasm,” in the Fortnightly 
Review for February 1869, says :—‘‘ Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen 
are all lifeless bodies. Of these, carbon and oxygen unite in certain propor- 
tions and under certain conditions to give rise to carbonic acid ; hydrogen and 
oxygen produce water ; nitrogen and hydrogen give rise to ammonia. These 
new compounds, like the elementary bodies of which they are composed, are 
lifeless. But when they are brought together under certain conditions they 
give rise to the still more complex body, protoplasm ; and this protoplasm ex- 
hibits the phenomena of life. I see no break in this series of steps in molecu- 
lar complication, and Iam unable to understand why the language which is 
applicable to any one term of the series may not be used to any of the others. 
We think fit to call different kinds of matter carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and 
nitrogen, and to speak of the various powers and activities of these substances 
as the properties of the matter of which they are composed. Is the 
case in any way changed when carbonic acid, water, and ammonia disappear, 
and in their place, under the influence of pre-existing protoplasm, an equiva- 
lent weight of the matter of life makes its appzarance? What justi- 
fication is there, then, for the assumption of the existence in the living matter 
of a something which has no representative or correlative in the not livirg 
matter which gave rise toit?’’ (The passage I have marked by italics 
indicates the extent to which Prof. Huxley stops short of the views I have 
been endeavouring to support.) 
Now I maintain that the logical outcome of such doctrines as these is that 
Life zy manifest itself whenever certain particular collocations of complex 
molecules occur, just as surely as crystalline properties will be manifested 
by chloride of sodium whenever the molecules of this substance combine to 
form crystals. The @ frioré presumptions being rather in favour of (cer- 
tainly not opposed to) the occurrence of the new evolution of Living things, 
we have to show, as well as we are able, that there 7sa tendency to the 
occurrence of such clusterings as will lead to the formation of bacteria or 
of fungus-spores, just as we feel compelled to believe that there is a 
tendency to the occurrence of those particular clusterings of molecules 
which result in the formation of crystals, 
Il. 
On the probable Evolution of Living Things in Organic and 
Saline Solutions, which have been previously exbosed to high 
Temperatures, in airless and hermetically sealed vessels. 
We must now come to the consideration of all the experimental 
evidence which can be adduced in support of what the micro- 
scope teaches us as to the mode of origin of the lower kinds 
of Living things. 
The method of experimentation which has been principally 
relied upon, has, since 1837, always been that introduced by 
Schwann. Sometimes the correspondence has been exact, and 
sometimes his experiments have been repeated with some slight 
modification. In this method, the solution of organic matter is 
first boiled in a flask, the neck of which is securely connected 
with a tube closely packed with portions of red-hot pumice- 
stone, or other incombustible substance: after the solution 
has been boiled for some time, and all the air of the flask 
has been expelled, the flask itself is allowed to cool whilst the 
tube containing the closely-packed red-hot materials is still main- 
tained at the same temperature, in order that whatever air enters 
into the flask may be subjected to a calcining heat as it passes 
through the tube. When the flask has become cool it will then 
contain only the previously boiled solution in contact with air at 
ordinary atmospheric pressure, which has been calcined. Since 
it has been hitherto settled that the lower kinds of organisms 
which may be contained in the solutions, are destroyed when 
these fluids are raised to a temperature of 100° C., and that no 
organisms have been known to survive after having remained 
for thirty minutes in air raised to a temperature of 130° C., 
the boiling of the fluid for a time and the calcination of the air 
has generally been supposed to bea sufficient precaution to ensure 
the destruction. of all organisms in the experimental media. 
Experiments conducted in this way have been said to yield nega- 
tive results by some, whilst others have maintained that in spite 
of all such precautions, destined to destroy pre-existing Living 
things, they do, nevertheless, obtain low kinds of organisms, 
after two or three months, if not before, in their experimental 
fluids. 
Negative results in these experiments can of course prove little 
or nothing ; they may be explained equally well by either party :° 
either no organisms have been found, because they or all the 
germs which could give rise to them have been killed ; or it is 
just as fair for the evolutionists to explain the absence of organisms 
on the supposition that the particular fluids employed have 
not yielded them because of the severity of the destructive 
conditions to which the particular organic matter in the pre- 
viously boiled fluids had been subjected. When organisms ave 
found, however, in fluids which have been legitimately subjected 
to the conditions involved in Schwann’s experiments, then one 
of two things is proven : either the amount of heat which hitherto 
was deemed adequate to destroy all pre-existing organisms is 
in reality not sufficient, or else the organisms found must have 
been evolved de xove as the evolutionists suppose. Unless, 
therefore, the standard of vital resistance to heat can be 
shown to be higher than it was formerly supposed to be, 
any single positive result when Schwann’s experiment has 
been legitimately performed, is of far more importance towards 
the settlement of the question in dispute than five hundred 
negative results. It would tend to show that in the particular 
fluid employed organisms might be evolved de xove. And yet 
positive results.in the performance of these experiments have 
been obtained again and again by Schwann himself, by Ingen - 
housz, by Mantegazza, Pouchet, MM. Joly, and Musset, Jeffries 
Wyman, Dr. Child, and, not to mention any others, even by 
M. Pasteur himself.* 
But even this is not all; organisms have been found in fluids 
which had been contained in closed vessels, after exposure to con- 
ditions still more severe. Prof. Jeffries Wyman, of Cambridge, 
U.S., published an account (which I am sorry to say I have been 
unable to obtain from any of our libraries) in 1862 of experiments 
in which he had boiled fluids containing organic matter for a 
‘period of two hours under a pressure of two atmospheres, that 
* We have the testimony of M. Pasteur to the fact that organisms may 
almost always be met with when milk or some other alkaline fluid is made 
use of in Schwann’s experiment. He says he has always met with negative 
results, however, if such fluids have been raised to a temperature of 110° C. 
rather than roo C, Concerning his inferences from these experiments I 
shall have more to say hereafter. ¥ 
