1872.] 



Evolution of Life from Lifeless Matter. 



153 



process, but also why others, and particularly M. Pasteur, have obtained 

 results leading to directly an opposite conclusion . These arguments are not 

 drawn from experimental evidence ; they do not therefore fall within the 

 bounds of this discussion ; but I would point out that, in one case, not 

 only do Dr. Bastian's own experiments deny the truth of a most important 

 assumption of the evolutionists, but also at the same time my own experi- 

 ence proves the contrary. He says* : — " The disruptive agency of heat is 

 fairly enough supposed by the evolutionists to destroy some of the more 

 mobile combinations in each solution — to break up more or less com- 

 pletely, in fact, those very complex organic products whose molecular in- 

 stability is looked upon as one of the conditions essential to the evolutional 

 changes which are supposed to take place." Before granting such a sup- 

 position, it would be necessary to know, first, what are " the very com- 

 plex organic products " of such peculiar " molecular instability " existing 

 in a solution of tartrate of ammonia, sodic phosphate, acetate of ammonia, 

 oxalate of ammonia, in a solution of sugar and calcined yeast, in turnip in- 

 fusion, or any other putrescible liquid. My experiments show that there 

 is no such disruptive agency in a high temperature, that it does not influ- 

 ence the "more mobile combinations," either in solutions of organic salts 

 or vegetable infusions ; for the " test-tubes" T were precisely the same as 

 the others of the series, contents identical, heated at the same time to the 

 same temperature, in fact taken from among them indiscriminately, the 

 only difference being that one was exposed to the air and the others were 

 not. Besides, there is in addition the evidence afforded by the tubes 

 classed under D", E", and F" ; yet we find the changes occurred in them 

 as readily as in the unheated original solutions. Dr. Bastian recordsf the 

 development of organisms in a liquid heated as high as 153° C. ; yet the 

 assumed "disruptive agency of heat" is supposed to have influenced the 

 results of Schwann and Pasteur at a temperature of 100° C. ! His experi- 

 ence is contradictory to his own theory, and at the same time to the 

 experiments of others, to which his theory raises objection. 



It has long been established by Pasteur, Payen, and other experimenters, 

 that a temperature of less than 130° C. is insufficient to destroy all trace 

 of life if the germs or spores are not immersed in a liquid ; this is a fact 

 admitted on all sidesj. In that case it is not difficult to understand how, 

 in the experiments of Dr. Child and Prof. "Wyman, organisms have been 

 found in liquids to which air only which had passed through red-hot pipes 

 was admitted. The former took a bulb with two narrow necks or tubes, 

 and containing the experimental liquid ; one tube was connected by a cork 

 boiled in water with a red-hot porcelain tube filled with pumice, and con- 

 nected with a gas-holder ; the other tube dipped into sulphuric acid : the 



* ' Nature,' vol. i. p. 176. 



t 'Nature,' vol. ii. p. 200.^ 



t 'Nature,' vol. ii. p. 170; Amer. Jom-h. Science, vol.xxxiv. p. 79; Proc. Roy. Soc. 

 vol. xiii. p. 313. 



N 2 



