344 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 
of the Monera takes place by true autogeny, then it is 
further requisite that that plasma capable of life, that. pri- 
meval mucus, should be formed out of simpler combinations 
of carbon. As we are now able artificially to produce, 
in our laboratories, combinations of carbon similar to this 
in the complexity of their constitution, there is absolutely 
no reason for supposing that there are not conditions in free 
nature also, in which such combinations could take place. 
Formerly, when the doctrine of spontaneous generation was 
advocated, it failed at once to obtain adherents on account 
of the composite structure of the simplest organisms then 
known. It is only since we have discovered the exceedingly 
important Monera, only since we have become acquainted 
in them with organisms not in any way built up of distinct 
organs, but which consist solely of a single chemical combin- 
ation, and yet grow, nourish, and propagate themselves, that 
this great difficulty has been removed, and the hypothesis of 
spontaneous generation has gained a degree of probability 
which entitles it to fill up the gap existing between Kant’s 
cosmogony and lLamarck’s Theory of Descent. Even 
among the Monera at present known there is a species 
which probably, even now, always comes into existence by 
spontaneous generation. This is the wonderful Bathybius 
Heckelii, discovered and described by Huxley. As I have 
already mentioned (p. 184), this Moneron is found in the 
greatest depths of the sea, at a depth of between 12,000 and 
24,000 feet, where it covers the ground partly as retiform 
threads and plaits of plasma, partly in the form of larger or 
smaller irregular lumps of the same material.* 
_ * We must wait for fuller information on the subject of Bathybius, at the 
hands of the naturalists of the Challenger expedition, before accepting 
it finally as a distinct organism.—Editor. 
