OCCURRENCE OF ARCHBBIOSIS 159 



fluids. This latter method calls attention to, and thoroughly 

 exposes the fallacy of, the common belief that the occurrence of 

 ' spontaneous generation ' is opposed to the universal experience of 

 mankind. It shows that what is supposed to contradict this 

 common experience lies altogether outside, and, of necessity, com- 

 pletely beyond the range of ordinary human experience. Nobody 

 with unaided eyes could ever have witnessed the birth from fluids 

 of invisible particles, by which the 'spontaneous generation' of 

 living matter must always commence, if it commences at all. And 

 even when aided by the most powerful microscope nobody could 

 decide when minimum visible particles appear in the field of view 

 that such particles have proceeded from invisible germs rather than 

 from a primordial synthesis of living units. 



But in regard to this latter point I have already shown that 

 absolutely no logical or consistent reason exists for a disbelief in the 

 present occurrence of Archebiosis ; and that the general question 

 may be judged quite apart from the fact that, in spite of numerous 

 attempts to prove its occurrence by means of experiment, no one 

 has yet succeeded in convincing the scientific world that a suffi- 

 cient weight of experimental evidence has been adduced. There 

 is, however, as I have said, no vestige of evidence to show that 

 under favourable conditions the process may not be continually 

 taking place around us. The birth of invisible particles of living 

 matter in suitable fluids in free nature could not oppose or con- 

 tradict the actual experience of any one. Yet this, and this only, 

 is all that is meant by Archebiosis. 



