56 EVOLUTION AND THE 
from higher to lower forms of life, till at the last it is 
maintained as a mode of origin only for the very 
lowest and most minute of living things, has been 
regarded by many (as I have already pointed out) 
as one of the most weighty arguments against this 
kind of generation. But this objection, as before 
shown, is robbed of all its seeming strength when it is 
said that the modern Evolutionist would only expect 
to obtain evidence concerning the de novo origin of 
the minutest specks of Living Matter—gradually 
emerging into the region of the visible and subse- 
quently developing into the most elementary Forms 
of Life. 
Thus the formula, omne vivum ex vivo, has even 
no sufficient @ priori warrant. It is an induction 
which has been formed after a partial scrutiny of the 
facts—one that has been arrived at, not in accord- 
ance with the modern methods of experimental 
inquiry, but by the ancient custom of mere passive 
observation and enumeration, against which the 
founder of the Inductive Philosophy so strongly 
raised his voice.* 
So far, then, it would seem that at least as much 
is to be said in favour of the new as of the old 
hypothesis, even from a mere frima facie considera- 
* Named by him “ Inductio ‘per enumerationem simplicem, ubi non 
reperitur instantia contradictoria.” 
