38 DEWAR ON SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 



There are of course scores of men who conduct experiments in 

 such a way that life has not a chance of exhibiting itself. They 

 enter into the subject with a mind predisposed against the theory, 

 and perform the most useless experiments under the most absurd 

 conditions. They did not want to produce animals which lived 

 under like conditions with ourselves, or the animals around us, but 

 creations which would be subject to conditions which are imposed 

 on no living thing. Because animals would not form in solutions 

 known to be destructive to all animal life ; because animals could 

 not be evolved with a body which would endure being boiled or 

 roasted ; because animals would not come to life in an atmosphere 

 below zero, or could live without water, spontaneous generation 

 was a farce ! Many also would mix up mineral substances alone, 

 expecting an animal to result, when the only possible one would be 

 of cast iron, rivetted and jointed with nuts, screws, and washers; 

 they forgot that even such an animal — a locomotive for instance — 

 requires fire, air, and water, to set it in motion. These experi- 

 ments by incapable or prejudiced chemists, do not, however, affect 

 the main proposition — which, indeed, forces itself on everyone who 

 has seen stale beef, cheese, fruit or vegetables — viz : that under 

 favorable conditions, life will continually spring up spontaneously 

 in matter. 



As our time is limited, and it is impossible for us to analyze the 

 subject as we would like, we will confine ourselves to showing what 

 life is, and if we can prove that the life which forms crystals and 

 rocks and moves the compass needle, is the same as that which 

 grows trees and moves our bodies, then we may consider our prem- 

 ises proved, for as all organic beings are composed of so-called 

 inorganic matter, and if the same life pervades both, what should 

 prevent the life force from gathering several inoi-ganic atoms, and 

 growing them into an organic animal ? We do not say to grow into 

 an elephant or a hippopotamus in a few days, but into a microscopic 

 animal, having as much semblance of life as an oyster or a sponge. 

 That these animals might, however, develope into creatures as large 

 as elephants, if deposited in favourable situations, and left undis- 

 turbed, is not only possible, but probable. 



