Spencer's writings. If Dr. B.'s book had been turned upside down, and he
had begun with the various cases of heterogenesis, and then gone on to
organic and afterwards to saline solutions, and had then given his
general arguments, I should have been, I believe, much more influenced.
I suspect, however, that my chief difficulty is the effect of old
convictions being stereotyped on my brain. I must have more evidence
that germs or the minutest fragments of the lowest forms are always
killed by 212 deg. of Fahr. Perhaps the mere reiteration of the statements
given by Dr. B. by other men whose judgment I respect and who have
worked long on the lower organisms would suffice to convince me. Here is
a fine confession of intellectual weakness; but what an inexplicable
frame of mind is that of belief.
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.
Dr. B. is always comparing archebiosis as well as growth to
crystallisation; but on this view a Rotifer or Tardigrade is adapted to
its humble conditions of life by a happy accident; and this I cannot
believe.
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