AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. 205 



the origin of beings began to be formed, and the 

 advocates of spontaneous generation lost ground. 

 They did not, however, maintain the fight, but limited 

 the area of application of these doctrines. Now, in 

 proportion as science progressed, this area became 

 narrower and narrower. Then the partisans divided. 

 Some of them, among whom we may mention 

 Lamarck, Burdach, and Duges, continued to regard 

 the physical forces — light, heat, and electricity — as 

 sufficient to organize and animate matter, so as to 

 transform it into living beings; the others, among 

 whom were Redi himself, Eudolphi, Morren, Oken, 

 and Nordmann, supposed that the plastic forces in 

 organized and living beings might suffer a sort of 

 deviation, from which new beings, different from the 

 first, w^ould result. For example, according to them, 

 portions of the vitellus of a mollusk, isolated during 

 segmentation, would produce directly a species of 

 infusorian; food digested under the influence of the 

 vital force would be converted into Tcenice, and certain 

 juices destined to repair the muscular fibres would 

 organize a series of Cysticerci, &c* 



* M. Pouchet and the few other naturalists who, even nowadays, 

 constitute themselves, in The name of progress, defenders of these 

 antiquated views, hold a sort of median course. M. Pouchet does 

 not admit the spontaneous formation of an animal. He believes 

 that the plastic force co-operating with the physico-chemical forces, 

 organizes at first & proligerous pellicle, which, in the case of spontaneous 

 generation, exactly represents the ovary in normal generation. It is 

 in this pellicle and at its expense that the spontaneous ovule is 

 developed. — (Heterogenic ; ou Traite de la Generation spontanee, 

 1859.) This modification of the doctrine is certainly more apparent 

 than real. The spontaneous organization of an ovary, or of an ovule, ' 

 is in a physiological point of view a phenomenon of exactly the 

 same order as the organization of an entire animal. The sec end 



