Importance of Spontaneous Generation.
The manner in which this problem, from a materialistic point of view,
can and must be treated, is not so complicated as we might imagine. The
central thought in all materialistic discussions and investigations may
be briefly expressed as follows: Life is a material force and nothing
else. If this be true, then of course materialism is the only true
religion. Whether God or some other higher being exists, must then become
a question of little or no consequence. Man knows in any case his own
origin and fate. The fundamental religious doctrines will then read:
In matter alone dwell all the forces of nature and spirit; in matter
alone can these forces appear and reveal themselves; nature knows of no
supernatural beginning or continuation; it produces everything; consumes
everything; is itself beginning and end, cradle and grave; by its own
power nature produces man, by its own power it receives him back again.
Against these and similar statements there would be no objection, if it
could be shown that life really has its source in the material world. But
if it can be demonstrated that life never does, nor ever could by any
possibility, originate in lifeless matter, then it is evident that we
must look for some other source.
Let it be our object, then, fully to investigate this problem.
If living beings are produced by material forces, experience must verify
the fact that matter really creates life of itself. In other words, the
“to be or not to be” of materialism is identical with the old question
of _generatio aequivoca_ or _spontanea_, i. e., whether there exists in
nature a spontaneous or parentless generation of living beings.
_Generatio aequivoca_ covers the entire ground of the materialists. Here
the doctrine has not only its principal roots but all of them.
If the materialists lose this foothold, all their natural science
resources are emptied at once, so important is _generatio spontanea_ for
materialism. Only under this form and with this substance can natural
science have anything in common with materialism, which latter, strictly
speaking, is only a religious doctrine, although as such purely negative.
But just for this reason science has for centuries labored to decide
whether this doctrine is false or true.
The question is, does or does not this spontaneous generation exist?
Scientific research has, in all times, occupied itself with this question
in different forms and modes.
The farther we go back in time the more general we find the opinion that
life may arise spontaneously from inorganic matter. That such an idea
should prevail, is, of course, easy to understand. Very little was known
about the propagation of the lower animals and plants. Especially the
very peculiar and complicated development of the parasites and their
passive migrations were practically unknown.
It seemed impossible to understand whence these beings had come, so the
nearest explanation was resorted to, that is to say, that wherever they
were found, they had come into existence “of themselves.” Neither was it
so clearly understood then as now that eggs and seeds are living beings
as well as the fully developed animals and plants. It was thought that
grain must decay in the earth, yea, that this was the necessary condition
for the growth of the plant.
Thus people had daily before their eyes cases where living beings were
generated by substances that seemed inert and dead.
But with a better and more complete knowledge of organisms and
especially of the extremely complicated mode of propagation
characteristic of insects, doubts as to _generatio spontanea_
increasingly arose. It was, however, at a comparatively late time, or in
the middle of the seventeenth century, that Harvey formulated his famous
thesis, “_omne virum ex oro_,” or, as it has been later said, “_omne
vivum ex vivo_,” which we may translate thus: “_Life implies life; all
living beings descend from previous existing parents_,” or negatively,
“_No living being is generated from lifeless matter_.” Thus, for the
first time, the idea was pronounced by natural science that life is a
specific force; an independent principle, that has not its roots in the
material world.
As _generatio aequivoca_ leads to materialism, so Harvey’s formula leads
to pure idealism. That these consequences should have been seen from
the beginning, was so much the less to be expected since even today no
such discovery has been made or could have been made, simply because no
attention has been given to it. Hitherto the only question has been: Is
Harvey’s formula a fact verified by natural science or not? In this form
the battle has raged for over two centuries, often with great vehemence,
and victory has leaned now to one side, now to the other. Finally, it was
agreed that parentless generation was not to be found among the higher
forms of animals and plants which could be observed with the naked eye.
Büchner himself says it has not hitherto been discovered that any higher
or more developed organism may be created by inorganic matter and forces
alone.
“Today,” he says, “it seems to be a general law of the inorganic world
that everything living originates from a parental embryo or else is
directly segregated from the mother-body.”
But although spontaneous generation of the higher animals and plants
seemed doubtful even to Büchner, nothing was at this time settled in
regard to the origin of the lower organisms. With the discovery of
the microscopical organic world, a new field and one more difficult of
access was opened for research. It was now the sudden and unexpected
appearance of bacteria, aspergillus and infusoria in places where their
previous existence could not be imagined, that maintained the belief
in _generatio spontanea_. But by and by we learned to understand the
propagation and life also of these low organisms, their ability to
withstand very high or very low temperatures, and the facility with which
they are spread by the air and, above all, their rapid propagation. It
commenced to be more and more evident that even in the micro-organic
world no parentless generation exists. The investigations by Spallanzani,
and later by Schultze, Schwann, von Dusch and Schröder, were epochal for
the establishing of this fact. Their method, however, left some room
for criticism which was forcefully pointed out by a great number of
scientists, especially by the Englishman Needham.
During all these disputes Harvey’s formula had, however, won such a
stability and approbation that Büchner himself under its pressure
formulated his position in the following cautious words: “Even if
recent scientific researches have more and more limited the ground for
spontaneous generation, it is nevertheless not improbable _that it even
now takes place among the lowest and least developed organisms_.”
It may willingly be conceded that this assertion was in its time by no
means without foundation. But scarcely could Büchner or anybody else at
that moment imagine how soon the hour of decision would strike. Shortly
after 1860 the many centuries old question was finally settled almost
simultaneously by Hoffman and Pasteur. Through the latter’s masterly
investigations it was fully demonstrated that parentless generation does
not exist in the micro-organic world either. Before Pasteur’s simple and
clear evidence, opposition was silenced even so far that the question
has almost entirely ceased to occupy our attention. _Omne vivum ex vivo_
appears now to be an unchallenged truth. Life implies life.
But although science thus rejected _generatio spontanea_, the
materialists nevertheless occupy a very strong position on the selfsame
foundation as formerly, and continue the defense apparently not without
some success.
In spite of Büchner’s real, or perhaps partly pretended, confidence, he
seems to have had a presentiment of how weak the support of _generatio
spontanea_ was, and we find him therefore suddenly reasoning as if its
cause were already lost. Thus he makes the entirely sound remark that
even if at the present time all animals and plants must have parents,
yet nothing whatever is thereby demonstrated in regard to the very
first appearance of life in the universe. “If all organic beings have
parents, how, then, did the first parents come into existence?” he asks.
“When all outer conditions were favorable, might they not have appeared
spontaneously, accidentally or necessarily? Or must the first organisms
have been created through the intervention of some higher power?” Büchner
concedes that this question is extremely complicated, and at first glance
may appear unsolvable without the assumption of some such higher being
who of his own will created the first organisms as it pleased him and
endowed them with the faculty of propagation. “Orthodox scientists point
with satisfaction also to this state of affairs,” says Büchner, “and
they remind us at the same time of the artful and complicated structure
of the world, and warmed by their conviction they see therein the wise
arrangements of a higher, personal creator, who built the world according
to his personal intentions.”
We might, according to Büchner, dismiss these orthodox thinkers with
the assumption “that the first elements endowed with the idea of the
race have been present in space from all eternity in formless chaos out
of which the universe slowly consolidated, and accidentally developed
after the formation and cooling of the planet wherever conditions were
favorable.” But such fictitious reasonings or pretexts, Büchner assures
us, are not necessary. Scientific facts, he says, indicate with great
distinctness that the organic beings on our earth owe their generation
and propagation to the co-operation of physical substances and forces
alone.
After such an introduction we proceed with interest to learn about these
scientific facts, but how great is our disappointment when we find that
Büchner here takes up an entirely different subject, which, if it has any
connection with the question at issue, goes to prove just the reverse of
what he intended. The whole long series of facts to which he now points
is, in a few words, nothing but Darwin’s theory in a paleontological
light. What Büchner shows by numerous examples from fossil deposits, is
that higher forms of animals and plants have slowly developed from lower
forms. But what has this fact to do with _generatio spontanea_? That
higher forms have developed from lower forms only confirms the dictum
that life implies life; in other words, supports Harvey’s law. But it is
something else that Büchner should have demonstrated. He should instead
have shown us that the first organisms owe their existence to physical
forces alone. But on this subject he uses only vague expressions, void of
any real significance, about the slow cooling off of the earth; about the
length of the geological periods, and about favorable conditions; but not
a line to explain what this word “favorable” stands for.
Although Büchner here inadvertently supports something different from
what he intended, his remark nevertheless remains true that the present
mode of propagation proves nothing in regard to the generation of the
first organisms.
Other scientists have gone further than Büchner and believed themselves
justified in extending Harvey’s law to cover not only the present time,
but all times. And the problem as to the first organisms has been
answered in various ways. Sir William Thomson believes that such might
have come to the earth with some meteoric stone, possibly a moss-clad
fragment, from another planet in the universe that had met with a cosmic
catastrophe, and, further, he has even tried to show that this hypothesis
does not involve any physical impossibility.
Opinions seem to be divided, then, as to the validity of Harvey’s law.
This again indicates a deficiency in the law itself, and it is true that
such a deficiency really exists. _Harvey’s formula is not a law; it is,
as yet, only an empirical hypothesis._
It is true that life presupposes life in all the cases we have been
able to investigate. These cases are exceedingly numerous because on
the disbelief in _generatio spontanea_ rests a whole modern industry,
the art of preserving, which in millions of cases daily verifies the
hypothesis. But our experience, in spite of this, does not reach far. If
we continue our observations, who can guarantee that we would not finally
discover that Büchner, after all, was right, and one single case would
suffice. The utmost we can attain by observation is a certain degree of
probability, and if we undertook to prove Harvey’s hypothesis to be a law
in this way, our experiments must be extended _in infinitum_.
In order to reach certainty only under present conditions, we must study
the generation of every now living organism, animals, plants, bacteria
and the like. If it were found then that all these beings have had
parents it would still be impossible to draw absolutely sure conclusions
in regard to previous generations. We should be obliged to extend our
researches through antiquity and primeval ages. If then no gap was
to be found in the series and we perhaps finally traced life back to
the “moss-clad fragment” from another world, we would again face the
question, how the beings on that planet, once in time, had come into
existence? Perhaps there the elements and forces of nature were such as
to create life spontaneously. This question, of course, could not be
decided except through continued observations, which would be obliged to
extend to every point of an infinite universe and back to the dawn of
time. First, then, we should know that Harvey’s hypothesis was a law,
valid without limitations in the past—but also only in the past—and valid
with one single exception, namely, the very first organism, of which we
presently shall speak. In regard to the law’s validity in the future,
we should no doubt possess a knowledge that approached certainty, but
it could not be called absolutely sure. Because, even granted that no
living being hitherto was without parents, it is not logically impossible
that sometime in the future, lifeless matter might undertake to create
organisms. To obtain certainty we must continue our observations until
the end of time.