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Spontaneous Generation. This reduction of known biological phenomena to simpler terms, the lessening of the gap between inorganic and organic chemistry, and the formulation of the doctrine of the conservation of energy, have all prepared the way for a fourth step, the establishment of the inevitable theory of generatio spontanea sive equivoca, the spontaneous generation of the living, that is to say, the gradual evolution of the living from the not living.
On the other hand it was one of the characteristics and axioms of scientific thought to reject this naïve generatio equivoca, and to hold fast to the proposition, omne vivum ex ovo, or, at least, omne vivum ex vivo.
They bring this quickly about by beginning a paradox; the sterility of their own heads suggests their taking the path of negation; and truths that have long been recognised are now denied for instance, the vital power, the sympathetic nervous system, generatio equivoca, Bichat's distinction between the working of the passions and the working of intelligence, or they return to crass atomism, etc., etc.
He must go to the theatre every evening, in an orchestra-chair at twenty-two soldi, and enjoy the curious didacticism of "Amore senza Stima," "Severita e Debolezza," "La Societa Equivoca," and other popular specimens of contemporaneous Italian comedy unless indeed the last-named be not the edifying title applied, for peninsular use, to "Le Demi- Monde" of the younger Dumas.
In practice there was a fission, and procreation becomes an independent problem for alchemists. Yet the followers of the art did learn from nature, in order that their art might follow the works of nature even to improve on her; what wonder then if many of them set themselves to the artificial creation—generation—of man? Yet the belief in generatio equivoca has not long been dead.
Their sterile heads take naturally to the path of negation; so they begin to deny truths that have long been admitted the vital power, for example, the sympathetic nervous system, generatio equivoca, Bichat's distinction between the working of the passions and the working of intelligence; or else they want us to return to crass atomism, and the like.
But a short time after Pasteur’s discoveries, the ideas of Darwinism and the theory of evolution gained widespread acceptance. And now it appeared that, in rejecting the theory of generatio equivoca, naturalists had, so to speak, sawn off the branch on which they desired to sit, and thus many, like Haeckel, became enthusiastic converts to the theory which natural science had previously rejected.
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