Evolution and the beginnings of life.

  • Henry Charlton Bastian
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Evolution and the beginnings of life. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    and present more consistency with observed facts than that which it seeks to supersede ? if so, the philosopher will adopt it, and the world will follow the philosopher—after many days. But if, even when looked at merely as hypotheses, that of Archebiosis with Heterogenesis seems so likely to drive the old doctrine out of the field, we instinctively look around us for one of those crucial instances which may serve, as has been so often the case in the history of science, finally to decide between the contending claims of old and new views. Now a crucial instance of this kind (or oppor- tunity of employing the all-decisive experimental Method of Difference), does very fortunately lie within our reach, and has already been referred to. Its true value, however, may be now more clearly seized by the reader ; so that for this reason, and because all past discussions on the question of the Origin of Life have shown that this is the part of the subject whose scientific basis is least understood or most persistently disregarded, I venture, even though with some slight reiteration to make a few con- cluding remarks on this crucial test—whose decision the opponents of Archebiosis attempt to set aside by a mixture of what appears to me to be, illogical arguments and groundless assumptions.
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