BEGINNING OF LIFE; : 163 
The verdict, as to the beginning of life, is commonly 
dependent on the standpoint adopted with respect to 
the possibility of primordial or spontaneous generation 
(generatio equivoca). This course is, in our opinion, 
only half correct. The subtlest experiments on spon- 
taneous generation, whether from organic matter or 
from constituents not yet combined into molecules of 
organic matter, have proved indecisive on both sides. 
Neither the impossibility nor the possibility can be ex- 
perimentally demonstrated ; it always remains open to 
the sceptic to say, if nothing appears, that the failure of 
spontaneous generation is due to the conditions of the 
experiment ; or if anything does make its appearance, 
that, notwithstanding every precaution, germs made 
their way into the infusion. Opinion as to continued 
primordial genesis still taking place, is thus a mere 
emanation of the general theory of nature held by each 
individual. To any one who holds open the possibility 
that, even now, animate may be evolved from inanimate 
existence, without the mediation of progenitors, the first 
origin of life in this natural method is at once self-evident. 
But even if the proof were given, which never can be 
given, that in the present world spontaneous generation 
does not occur, the inference would be false that it never 
did occur. When our planet had reached the phase 
of development in which the temperature of the surface 
admitted of the formation of water and the existence 
of albuminous substances, the quantitative and qualita- 
tive conditions of the atmosphere were different from 
what they now are. A thousand circumstances now 
beyond our control, and as to the possible nature of 
which it is needless to speculate, might lead to the pro- 
