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It is of great importance to apprehend Redi's position rightly; for the lines of thought he laid down for us are those upon which naturalists have been working ever since. Clearly, he held Biogenesis as against Abiogenesis; and I shall immediately proceed, in the first place, to inquire how far subsequent investigation has borne him out in so doing.
The 'Physical basis of life' has been driven into a corner, hunted down, seized at last, and over the heads of an eager, panting, chasing generation, is triumphantly dangled this 'Scientific Fox' brush, 'Nucleated Protoplasm, the structural unit! But how or whence sprang the laws of 'Protein'? Hatred of certain phrases is more bitter than of the principles they express, and because theologians cling to the words God, Creative Acts, Divine Wisdom, Providential Adaptation, scientists declare them the dicta of ignorance, superstition, and tradition, and demand that we shall bow before their superior wisdom, and substitute such terms as 'Biogenesis, 'Abiogenesis, and 'Xenogenesis. But where is the economy of credulity?
And in the next place, if the results of the experiments I refer to are really trustworthy, it by no means follows that Abiogenesis has taken place. The resistance of living matter to heat is known to vary within considerable limits, and to depend, to some extent, upon the chemical and physical qualities of the surrounding medium.
But though I cannot express this conviction of mine too strongly, I must carefully guard myself against the supposition that I intend to suggest that no such thing as Abiogenesis ever has taken place in the past, or ever will take place in the future.
The application of the microscope to anatomy in the hands of Grew, Leeuwenhoek, Swammerdam, Lyonnet, Vallisnieri, Réaurnur, and other illustrious investigators of nature of that day, displayed such a complexity of organisation in the lowest and minutest forms, and everywhere revealed such a prodigality of provision for their multiplication by germs of one sort or another, that the hypothesis of Abiogenesis began to appear not only untrue, but absurd; and, in the middle of the eighteenth century, when Needham and Buffon took up the question, it was almost universally discredited.
It is just fifty years since Schwann and others proved that, even with respect to them, the supposed evidence of abiogenesis was untrustworthy.
It will be necessary for me to refer to this hypothesis so frequently, that, to save circumlocution, I shall call it the hypothesis of Biogenesis; and I shall term the contrary doctrine that living matter may be produced by not living matter the hypothesis of Abiogenesis.
As a general rule, they prefer the latter alternative. "The theory of evolution in its complete form involves the assumption that at some period or other of the earth's history there occurred what would be now called 'spontaneous generation." And so Professor Huxley "It is argued that a belief in abiogenesis is a necessary corollary from the doctrine of Evolution.
The popular belief in abiogenesis, or the so-called 'spontaneous' generation of the lower forms of life, which was accepted by all the philosophers of antiquity, held its ground down to the middle of the seventeenth century.
Coming to the latter part of the paragraph, it is in no way proved that instincts can be reduced to physico-chemical laws, and, suppose it were proved, the assumption of design would be exactly where it is at this moment. It is the old story of St. Thomas Aquinas and Avicenna and their discussion on abiogenesis, and surely biologists might be expected to have heard of that.
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