386 Address of Professor Hucley. 
pre-existing living matter, took definite shape; and had, hence- 
forward, a right to be considered and a claim to be refuted, in 
each particular case, before the production of living matter in 
any other way coul uld be salt by careful reasoners. It will 
Ke necessary for me to refer to this hypothesis so frequently, 
that, to save circumlocution, shall call it the hypothesis of 
Biogenesis ; and I shall term ‘the contrary doctrine—that livin 
matter may be produced by not living matter—the hypothesis 
of Abiogenesis. 
In the seventeenth century, as I have said, the latter was the 
dominant view, sanctioned alike by antiquity and by authority ; 
and it is interesting to observe that Redi Hae na escape the cus- 
tomary tax upon a discoverer of having to defend himself 
acai the charge of impugning the pa ee of the Scriptures ; 
for his adversaries declared that the generation of bees from the 
actaievk a a dead lion is affirmed, in the Book of Judges, to 
have been the origin of the famous riddle with which Samson 
be ery the Philistines :-— 
* Out of the eater came forth mea 
And out of the ies came forth sweetness.” 
had lived in these times, would have infallibly caused hae to 
be classed among the defenders of ‘spontaneous generation. " 
“Omne vivum ex vivo,” “no life without antecedent life,” 
aphoristically sums up Redi’s doctrine ; but he went no further. 
It is most remarkable evidence of the philosophic caution and 
impartiality of his mind, that althoug Pp he had s eculatively 
anticipated the manner in which grubs really are deposited in 
fruits and in the galls of plants, he deliberately admits that the 
evidence is insufficient to bear him ip and he shersioee = 
rence of parasites wiht the se Shad in the same way. 
It is of great importance to apprehend Redi’s position rightly ; 
for the jase of thought he laid down for us are those upon 
naturalists have been working ever since. Clearly, he 
as against Abiogenesis ; and I shall immediately 
proceed in the first place, to inquire how far subsequent 1 inves- 
Meatio borne him out in so doing. 
But "Redi also thought that there were two modes of Biogen- 
esis, By the one method, which is that of common and 0 
BA si al 2 
SE IE SEES fee eo ee 
CNR ET Regn ea een oe Ns ne 
SR ee a ee 
