On so-called spontaneous generation / by Benjamin T. Lowne.
- Benjamin Thompson Lowne
- Date:
- 1870
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On so-called spontaneous generation / by Benjamin T. Lowne. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![f Journal of Quekett Microscopical Club!] ^1 <7-.* ■ it / SPONTANEOUS .;0ENBRAT-I^, I . BENJAMIN T. LOWNE, M.R.C.g/s.^ ^ *v ' f Jieacl Scptemher 23rcZ, 1870;^^ When I announced a month ago that I would read you a paper on “ Spontaneous Generation,” Ihad.no idea that one of the great- est living naturalists was going to give a most able resume on the subject, or perhaps I should have hesitated in coming before you. Nevertheless I feel it is a matter for congratulation that I did so, as many unanswered questions have arisen since Professor Huxley delivered his address at Liverpool. Two hundred and two years ago Franeesco Pedi suceessfully combated the then prevalent doctrine of spontaneous generation by tlie most simple, nay, almost childlike experiments, such as putting meat under fine gauze, and so showing that maggots are not spontaneously generated. Since that day the tendency of experi- ments has certainly been in favour of Redi’s aphorism, “ Omne vivum e vivo.” The question, however, all turns upon that little word omne, all; whether all living things originate from germs, or whether some may originate spontaneously fiom not living matter. Now, there can be no doubt but that there was a first cell and a first organism which had no progenitor. Professor Huxley said last week, that although he could not believe anything in the ab- sence of evidence upon the subject, that ‘‘ expectation is permis- sible where belief is notand that if it were given him “ to look beyond the abyss of geologically recorded time to the still more remote period, when the earth was passing through physical and chemical conditions, which it can no more see again than a man can recall his infancy,” he should expect to be a witness of the evolution of living protoplasm from not living matter.” To show you that I am not biassed in this matter, and that I am no partisan, I tell you I go farther in my expectation than Pro- fessor Huxley, and I think that if we could produce the conditions we might see amcebiform protoplasm originating even yet from](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22330835_0003.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
