THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



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389 



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of acid, or of neutral or alkaline solutions respectively, 

 in repeating the experiments of Schwann. But here 

 we had nothing to do with the destructive agency of 

 heat, and germs were as free to enter or develop in the 

 one solution as they were in the other • so that the 

 differences actually observed would seem now, at all 

 events, simply due to the different qualities of the 

 fluids themselves. Of course such results cannot be 

 adduced as evidence that the evolutional property of the 

 neutral solution was higher than that of the acid solution. 

 It may not be a case of de novo origination at all, but 

 simply one of growth and development. The results, 

 however, show plainly enough that the neutral solu- 

 tion was the one most favourable to the growth and 

 development of living things. And if, starting from 

 this fact which cannot be denied, the evolutionists see 

 reasons which induce them to assume the possibility 

 that an actual origination of living things may have 

 taken place de novo^ in addition to mere growth and 

 development; they would also be likely to suppose that 

 the neutral fluid was more favourable to such evolution 

 than that which had been acidified^ — a supposition which 



^ Taking it only for what it is worth, it is at least deserving of 

 mention that no reason seems assignable for the presence of Torulce in 

 the one saline solution and not in the other. They were both equally 

 exposed to the advent of ' germs.' It can scarcely be imagined that 

 the ToruIa-gexTCis obtained access to both solutions, but that they 

 perished in that which was faintly acid, for, as a matter of fact, Torulce 

 are much more frequently met with in acid solutions than in those 

 which are alkaline. And for the same reason one can scarcely imagine 

 that any germs of Torulce which preexisted in the fluids were unable to 

 develop in one of them merely on account of its slight acidity. 



