334 
ORIGIN OF INFUSORIA. 
sporules of algae and other small organisms which had been 
entangled in their passage were fcund in the liquid/’ In a 
former article, on the (£ Conditions of Infusorial Life,” we gave 
a faithful account of the real state of this singular controversy, 
which is decidedly misrepresented by Dr. Sharpey’s remarks. 
In the first place, it is not fair to M. Pouchet, the leader of the 
heterogenists, whose opinions we by no means espouse, to 
treat the contest which is eagerly pursued in France, and 
which has extended to America, as merely a revival of the old 
dispute about <f spontaneous generation.” The details of M. 
Pouchet’s views will be found in his own work, 1 Hetero¬ 
genic,’ or in the article to which we have referred, and we do 
not intend to re-examine them now; suffice it to say that he 
reduces all generation to one principle, and conceives repro¬ 
duction by eggs ( orthogenesis ) and reproduction without eggs 
( 'heterogenesis ) to be the result of the same laws operating 
under different conditions. “ If,” says M. Pouchet, ££ a 
Supreme Being, whose unity is revealed in every part of the 
globe, has presided eternally and universally over all the 
phenomena that have been exhibited on its surface, and if it 
has pleased him to people the earth with tribes of animals 
and of plants that have succeeded one another, why not 
repeat to-day what has occurred in former epochs, for, as P. 
Gorini observes, spontaneous generation is not a greater 
marvel than normal reproduction.” M. Pouchet affirms in 
another passage that the same (i Creative Will” which origin¬ 
ally caused physical matter to assume living form without 
the previous intervention of sexual elements operates still. 
Thus both physiologically and theologically the modern con¬ 
troversy differs from the old, and it is only represented other¬ 
wise by those who would rather smother it under evil asso¬ 
ciations than patiently wait for a result that can only be 
reached by much labour and thought. 
As we stated in a former paper, the simplicity of the appa¬ 
ratus employed by M. Pasteur gives great value to his 
experiments, for it must be extremely difficult to shut out all 
sources of error when a series of vessels with numerous 
joints are employed, but some of his opponents deserve equal 
credit for the method they have adopted. Practically, the 
question to be first decided is, whether any vital organisms 
can appear in infusions in which existing germs have been de¬ 
stroyed, and to which the access of fresh germs is rigorously 
prevented. It has been assumed that boiling an infusion 
destroys any life or germ of life that it contains, and that 
when air is made to traverse a red-hot tube a similar result 
takes place. Now, it cannot be said that, in adopting these 
