dmitted to be of great weight.

On the other side, the sole assertions worthy of attention are that
hermetically sealed fluids, which have been exposed to great and long-
continued heat, have sometimes exhibited living forms of low organisation
when they have been opened.

The first reply that suggests itself is the probability that there must
be some error about these experiments, because they are performed on an
enormous scale every day with quite contrary results. Meat, fruits,
vegetables, the very materials of the most fermentable and putrescible
infusions, are preserved to the extent, I suppose I may say, of thousands
of tons every year, by a method which is a mere application of
Spallanzani's experiment. The matters to be preserved are well boiled in
a tin case provided with a small hole, and this hole is soldered up when
all the air in the case has been replaced by steam. By this method they
may be kept for years without putrefying, fermenting, or getting mouldy.
Now this is not because oxygen is excluded, inasmuch as it is now proved
that free oxygen is not necessary for either fermentation or
putrefaction. It is not because the tins are exhausted of air, for
_Vibriones_ and _Bacteria_ live, as Pasteur has shown, without air or
free oxygen. It is not because the boiled meats or vegetables are not
putrescible or fermentable, as those who have had the misfortune to be in
a ship supplied with unskilfully closed tins well know. What is it,
therefore, but the exclusion of germs? I think that Abiogenists are bound
to answer this question before they ask us to consider new experiments of
precisely the same order.

And in the next place, if the results of the experiments I refer to are
really trustworthy, it by no means follows that Abiogenesis has taken
place. The resistance of living matter to heat is known to vary within
considerable limits, and to depend, to some extent, upon the chemical and
physical qualities of the surrounding medium. But if, in the present
state of science, the alternative is offered us,--either germs can stand
a greater heat than has been supposed, or the molecules of dead matter,
for no valid or intelligible reason that is assigned, are able to re-
arrange themselves into living bodies, exactly such as can be
demonstrated to be frequently produced in another way,--I cannot
understand how choice can be, even for a moment, doubtful.

But though I cannot express this conviction of mine too str