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SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



in nine special articles. The first is a " General 

 Account," by Mr. R. Lloyd Praeger, B.E., M.R.I. A., 

 the Hon. Secretary of the Irish Field Club Union. 

 This records the daily work of the members 

 and friends present, who, by the way, appear 

 to have numbered nearly a hundred. The head- 

 quarters was at the Southern Hotel, Kenmare, one 

 of the four fine establishments recently erected on 

 the Kerry coast. Here the whole party found 

 ample accommodation, with private sitting-rooms 

 set apart for preservation of specimens and other 

 scientific work necessary each evening after the 

 day's explorations. The other reports are by 



G. H. Carpenter, B.Sc, on Spiders ; H. K. G. 

 Cuthbert, on Hymenoptera ; Hon. R. E. Dillon, on 

 Lepidoptera ; J. N. Hulbert, on Coleoptera and 

 Hemiptera ; R. Standen, on Mollusca ; R. LI. 

 Praeger, on the Botany ; and J. St. J. Philips, on 

 the Geology. The weather was admirable for 

 the botanists and entomologists, though the heat 

 and dryness were unfavourable to the malacolo- 

 gists. Copies of this Report may be obtained 

 from Eason and Son, Limited, Dublin, price six- 

 pence each. It will be found useful to general 

 readers or those desiring to visit Killarney and 

 Kenmare. J. T. C. 



PERSISTENCE OF LOW FORMS OF LIFE. 

 By G. W. Bulman, M.A., B.Sc. 



TF every other difficulty were removed, Darwin's 

 hypothesis of the origin of species would 

 remain a logical impossibility without that con- 

 tinued accession of new life usually known as 

 spontaneous generation. For, according to Darwin's 

 views, the higher forms arise from the lower by a 

 process of victory in the struggle for existence, in 

 the course of which those which have not varied 

 in a favourable way, perish. The new variety — 

 the incipient species — lives down the parent type, 

 and those which have varied in the wrong 

 direction. It is thus obvious that by the time 

 any higher species is formed the lower type from 

 which it arose ought to have disappeared ; and 

 hence, unless there were a continual production of 

 fresh forms of the lower organisms, such would in 

 time cease to exist. 



Lamarck recognized the logical necessity of such 

 a constant production of lower organisms for his 

 scheme of development, and adopted a belief in 

 spontaneous generation, for which he had ample 

 justification in the science of his day. 



It seems no less a logical necessity for Darwinism. 

 Professor Haeckel believes it to be so, and hence, 

 like Lamarck, accepts the hypothesis of spontaneous 

 generation, although the advanced science of to-day 

 affords no grounds for such a belief. Weismann, 

 too, whose brilliant powers of reasoning must be 

 universally acknowledged, sees the necessity for 

 it. "I admit," he writes (i), "that spontaneous 

 generation, in spite of all vain efforts to demonstrate 

 it, remains for me a logical necessity." Professor 

 von Nageli, the eminent botanist, whose recent 

 death science deplores, did the same. All plants, 

 he contended, would have become phanerogams 

 by this time if the lower orders were not continually 

 recruited by the development of the products of 

 spontaneous generation. But as the proof of the 

 (1) "Essays on Heredity," English translation, 2nd ed.p.34. 



spontaneous generation of even the lowest known 

 organism was not — as he had previously thought 

 possible— forthcoming, Professor von Nageli was 

 latterly led to push it back into the regions of the 

 unknown. He believed that the organic beings 

 produced by spontaneous generation were as much 

 more simple than bacteria as these are than the 

 highest plants and animals. 



As to Darwin himself, there can be little doubt 

 that he saw clearly the immense advantage, if not 

 the necessity, of such a belief to his views, and 

 would gladly have accepted it had his scientific 

 conscience permitted. But Professor Tyndall's 

 exhaustive experiments had declared against it, 

 and so, in spite of Dr. Bastian's ponderous voliime 

 and elaborate reasoning on the subject, Darwin 

 remained firm. That he had a hankering after 

 the doctrine is shown by his letters after reading 

 Dr. Bastian's work. Thus, to Mr. Wallace he 

 wrote : "I should like to live to see Archebiosis 

 proved true, for it would be a discovery of trans- 

 cendent importance ; or, if false, I should like to 

 see it disproved, and the facts otherwise explained." 

 Again, to Professor Haeckel: "I will at the same 



time send a paper which has interested me 



It contains a singular statement bearing on so- 

 called spontaneous generation. I much wish this 

 latter question could be settled,' but I see no 

 prospect of it. If it could be proved true, this 

 would be most important to us " (-). 



It is true that both Darwin and Wallace have 

 explained how their hypothesis of natural selection 

 can do without spontaneous generation ; but their 

 explanations can hardly be regarded as satisfactory. 

 They have too much the air of " explaining away " 

 to be accepted without suspicion. As to Darwin's, 

 it is one of the most unsatisfactory specimens 

 of reasoning to be found in the " Origin of 



{-) " Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," iii. p. 169. 



