It is hardly necessary to say that this does not apply to men, like Agassiz, who had already left their mark deep upon the science of their day, but it has a very real application to those men whose position was to be estimated by work done after the year 1858.
In the midst of those years of struggle and anxiety which followed the appearance of the “Origin,” we meet with another instance of the same extraordinary foresight which appeared in his contention in favour of the persistence of the great oceans and continental areas. I refer to his views on spontaneous generation—a very ancient belief, and one which from time to time has been the will-o’-the-wisp of biological speculation, leading it into all kinds of fruitless and dangerous regions.[K]
Dr. Carpenter’s “Introduction to the Study of Foraminifera” had been reviewed in the Athenæum (March 28th, 1863), the writer attacking evolution and favouring spontaneous generation, or, as it was then called, heterogeny. Darwin wrote to Hooker, who had lent him a copy of the paper, “Who would have ever thought of the old stupid Athenæum taking to Oken-like transcendental philosophy written in Owenian style!... It will be some time before we see ‘slime, protoplasm, etc.,’ generating a new animal.... It is mere rubbish, thinking at present of the origin of life; one might as well think of the origin of matter.” In 1871 he wrote:—
“It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present. But if (and oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc., present, that a proteine compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed.”
About 1870 Dr. H. C. Bastian began working on the subject, and brought forward in his “Origin of Lowest Organisms” (1871), and “The Beginnings of Life” (1872), what he believed to be conclusive evidence of the truth of spontaneous generation, for which he proposed the term Archebiosis. His enthusiasm and strong convictions were contagious, and for a time the belief spread rather widely, although it soon collapsed before the researches and arguments of Pasteur, Tyndall, and Huxley. Darwin read “The Beginnings of Life,” and wrote about it to Wallace (August 28th, 1872) as follows:—
“His [Bastian’s] general argument in favour of Archebiosis is wonderfully strong, though I cannot think much of some few of his arguments. The result is that I am bewildered and astonished by his statements, but am not convinced, though, on the whole, it seems to me probable that Archebiosis is true. I am not convinced, partly I think owing to the deductive cast of much of his reasoning; and I know not why, but I never feel convinced by deduction, even in the case of H. Spencer’s writings.... I must have more evidence that germs, or the minutest fragments of the lowest forms, are always killed by 212° of Fahr.... As for Rotifers and Tardigrades being spontaneously generated, my mind can no more digest such statements, whether true or false, than my stomach can digest a lump of lead.”
CHAPTER XXI.
VARIATION OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS UNDER DOMESTICATION: PANGENESIS (1868).
We now come to consider the succession of invaluable works produced by Darwin after the appearance of the “Origin,” the last of which—that on Earthworms—was published about six months before his death.
Darwin’s method of bringing these results before the world was somewhat different from that most generally adopted by scientific men in this country, although of common occurrence in Germany. The great majority of scientific facts are here published by the proceedings or transactions of scientific societies, or in special journals; and although a scientific man frequently brings together his general results into a volume for the public, the original communications remain as the detailed exposition of his researches.