206 METAMORPHOSES OF MAN 



The first of these two views is based especially 

 upon facts, (?) borrowed from the history of the Infu- 

 soria; the second, upon the existence of intestinal 

 worms. On some other occasion, perhaps, we shall 

 treat this great question of spontaneous generation 

 in detail, and show how the experiments of Schwann 

 and Henle demonstrated that germs * were carried 

 into infusions, which were not protected by the im- 

 proved apparatus of modern science ; how Pasteur's 

 experiments, by fully confirming those of his prede- 

 cessors and revealing new truths, have overcome the 

 final cavillings of the Heterogenists ; and how the 

 discovery of male and female elements in the Infusoria 

 crowned this mass of evidence. We shall at present 

 limit ourselves to proving, that the germs distributed 

 through the air develop only the animalcules, or 

 microscopic vegetables, that Spallanzani and so many 

 others supposed to be produced spontaneously; that 

 these germs have been re-collected and described by 

 various observers ; that M. Pasteur has collected and 



would not seem strange to me, nor would it be more difficult for 

 the plastic and physico-chemical forces than the first. M. Pouchet 

 rejects absolutely, limits, or declares very doubtful all facts opposed 

 to his theory. For example, he no more believes in the migrations 

 and transformations of the intestinal worms, than he admits the 

 accuracy of the precise and conclusive experiments of M. Pasteur. 

 In acting thus, he is in opposition to almost all naturalists, and to all 

 the physicians and chemists whose opinions I am conversant with. 

 # It is unnecessary to state that the word germ is not used in 

 the sense employed by the partisans of evolution and the pansper- 

 mists of Bonnet's school. This general expression is adopted here 

 to designate reproductive bodies, whatever their nature, which give 

 rise to the appearance of animals or vegetables in the liquid experi- 

 mented on (spores and cellules of vegetables, ova, Infusorian 

 cysts, desiccated animals which revive when placed in water, &c). 



