222 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. [^^jCSi.^JcriS^ 
and mitra shells, and Australian foraminifera ; Mr. Davidson showed 
foraminiferas from Nice ; Mr. Wonfor exhibited Pleurosigma formosum 
and P. angulatum with a Eeade's prism, injected preparation of Dr. 
Thudichum's Trichinous rabbit, and a series of the South American 
pest Pulex penetrans, chigoe or jigger, kindly lent by Mr. T. Curties, 
of Holborn. There were also exhibited by Mr. Baker, of London, 
Wright's and other collecting bottles, lamp chimneys to give white 
cloud light, Reade's prisms, and other apparatus.* 
Microscopical Society of Liverpool. 
The seventh ordinary meeting was held at the Royal Institution 
on Tuesday, 6th July. The President, Dr. Nevins, in the chair. A 
paper was read by the Eev. W. H. Dallinger, on " Spontaneous Gene- 
ration." The author said that the present position of science was 
attributable solely to its stern adhesion to truth. It admitted no 
inference that was not firmly based on fact, and suffered no generali- 
zation but such as accumulated fact rendered almost axiomatic ; but, 
although the leading minds of science were in harmony with its prin- 
ciples, they were sometimes led to generalization upon hypothetical 
"facts." To a mind cultured to scientific thought, and trained to 
scientific induction, nothing was more incongruous than that certain 
biological phenomena — call them electric, or magnetic, or mesmeric, 
or what you will — because they are beyond the reach of immediate 
interpretation, should be hastily generalized into the su]Dernatural, and 
branded with the name of " spiritualism." Now, the powers and per- 
fection of the microscope have recently been greatly augmented The 
consequence of this is that the lower organisms and minute vital 
developments of nature have been subjected to the strictest scrutiny. 
With powers magnifying variously from 200 to 15,000 or 20,000 dia- 
meters, earnest and enthusiastic minds have challenged nature for the 
mystery of life, and strange facts have come to us. But these "facts" 
are many of them incongruous and conflicting, and the correlations 
of many more are entirely hidden. Nevertheless they appear to some 
thinkers to point in an anticipated direction, and, strangely enough, 
some few of the very master minds of science have committed them- 
selves to a generalization in a name, and called the phenomena " spon- 
taneous generation." Mr. Dallinger said he was not anxious to deny 
or to defend the theory ; all he asked was stern fact, and not hypo- 
thesis from which to infer. As a minister of the Gospel, he had no 
fear of " spontaneous generation," provided it could be shown to be a 
correct interpretation of the facts of nature ; but that it should be 
this he respectfully contended. The two antagonistic theories of 
life — the one that it was simply a correlative of the forces of nature, 
making life " not independent of matter, but a condition of it," and 
declaring " that there is no boundary line between organic and inor- 
ganic substances ;" the other, that it was a force distinct from matter 
and independent of it, called " vital force " — were carefully explained 
and illustrated by quotation. The question, it would appear, could 
* Report supplied by Mr. T. W. Wonfor. 
