BIOLOGY,— {Continued.) 



CHAPTER IV. 



Cells ; or, Evolution. 



146. In the seventeenth century, an Italian 

 naturalist of eminence, by name Redi, undertook to 

 sift the question of spontaneous generation, which 

 we otherwise call organic evolution (No. 102). It 

 w T as a question older than Aristotle, whether life 

 could spring from non-life, living things from non- 

 living. They seemed to do so, as every one has 

 thought he saw for himself in decaying organic mat- 

 ter, in meat, cheese, and the like. Where does the 

 life come from, when it suddenly appears there, un- 

 less it starts up of itself from inanimate matter, and 

 from the mere chemical elements? Now this looks 

 like the evolution of organisms out of the inorganic. 

 Hence the name we give to it, organic evolution. 

 But the system of philosophy then prevalent, that 

 which is called the Aristotelian system, was adverse 

 to such a view. Even in the absence of ocular evi- 

 dence to support its position, it affirmed, Om?ie vivum 

 ex vivo, "The living comes only from the living." 

 It preferred to fall back upon the active energy of 

 the sun, holding that to be a kind of universal cause 

 equivalent to organic parentage, rather than admit 

 that life could spring from inorganic matter without 



i35 



