The freedom of science in the modern state : A discourse delivered at the third general meeting of the 50th conference of the German Association of Naturalists and Physicians at Munich, on the 22nd of September, 1877. With a new pref. by the author. Translated from the German, with the author's sanction.
- Rudolf Virchow
- Date:
- 1878
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The freedom of science in the modern state : A discourse delivered at the third general meeting of the 50th conference of the German Association of Naturalists and Physicians at Munich, on the 22nd of September, 1877. With a new pref. by the author. Translated from the German, with the author's sanction. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Gerstein Science Information Centre at the University of Toronto, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Gerstein Science Information Centre, University of Toronto.
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![organic being could have come into existence of itself, nothing further is left than to go hack to spontaneous generation. Thus much is evident. If I do not choose to accept a theory of creation; if I refuse to believe that there vp'as a special Creator, who took the clod of earth and breathed into it the breath of life; if I prefer to make for myself a verse after my own fashion [in the place of the verse in Genesis] ; then I must make it in the sense of generatio cequivoca. Tertium non datur. No alternative remains when once we say, ''I do not accept creation, but I will have an explana- tion. If that first thesis is laid down, you must go on to the second thesis and say, Ergo, I assume the generatio (equivoca. But of this we do not possess any actual proof. No one has ever seen a generatio cequivoca really effected, and whoever supposes that it has occurred is contradicted by the naturahst, and not merely by the theologian. Gentlemen, I adduce this argument in order to set our impartiality in its true light, which](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20995738_0065.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
