1877.] 



the Germinal Particles of Bacteria. 



417 



expressions used on the occasion above mentioned. I regret this because 

 these expressions occur in an abbreviated and incomplete abstract of a 

 hastily prepared discourse not intended for publication. 



As, however, I am well aware that Prof. Tyndall's purpose in his 

 communication was not to criticize the language, but the erroneous views 

 which the language appeared to him to contain, I shall make no further 

 reference to the quotation, but shall regard it as the purpose of the pre- 

 sent paper, first, to reply to the reasoning embodied in his last communi- 

 cation, and, secondly, to corroborate certain statements previously made 

 by me, to which he has taken exception in the more extended memoir 

 published in the 166th volume of the ' Philosophical Transactions.' 



It will be my first object to enable the Fellows of the Boyal Society 

 to judge how far the views I entertain differ from those which have been 

 enunciated here and elsewhere by Prof. Tyndall. Biologists are much 

 indebted to him for the new and accurately observed facts with which he 

 has enlarged the basis of our knowledge, as well as for the admirable 

 methods of research with which he has made us acquainted. As regards 

 the general bearing of these facts on the doctrine of Abiogenesis, I imagine 

 that we are entirely agreed. So far as I can make out, the difference 

 between us relates chiefly to two subjects, namely, the sense in which I 

 have employed the words " germ " and " structure," and the extent of 

 the knowledge at present possessed by physiologists as to the structure 

 and attributes of the germinal particles of Bacteria. 



Although Dr. Tyndall, in the title of his paper, refers to my " views 

 of ferment," yet as he makes no further allusion to them, I will content 

 myself with stating that in the passage quoted the first sentence (from 

 the words " In defining " to the word " living ") has nothing to do with 

 the following sentences, having been placed in the position w T hich it 

 occupies in the quotation by the abstractor. The paragraph ought to 

 begin with the words " Ten years ago." 



Of the meaning which attached itself to the word " germ " in the days of 

 Panspermism a correct idea may be formed from the following passage 

 from M. Pasteur's well-known memoir " Sur les Corpuscules Organises 

 qui existent dans 1' Atmosphere " : — " There exist," says he, " in the air a 

 variable number of corpuscles, of which the form and structure indicate 

 that they are organized. Their dimensions increase from extremely 

 small diameters to one hundredth of a millim., 1*5 hundredth of a millim., 

 or even more. Some are spherical, others ovoid. They have more or 

 less marked contours. Many are translucent, but others are opaque, 

 with granulations in their interior ... I do not think it possible to 

 affirm of one of these corpuscles that it is a spore, still less that it is the 

 spore of a particular species of microphyte, or of another that it is an 

 egg or the egg of a particular microzoon. I cod fine myself to the decla- 

 ration that the corpuscles are evidently organized ; that they resemble in 

 every respect the germs of the lower organisms, and differ from each 



