For Evolution to be logical, spontaneous, generation is a necessity, that is the production of the organic from the inorganic of life from dead matter. This is no new theory, for Aristotle believed that lower organisms could arise from the dead remains of higher organisms, as, for instance, fleas from manure, lice from morbid pustules in the skin, moths from old furs, and mussels from slime in the water.
It is true that plants extract matter from the inorganic world. They assimilate minerals and chemicals and turn them into living tissue, but animal life cannot assimilate from the inorganic.
H. A. Nicholson writes:- " As a broad rule, all plants are endowed with the power of converting inorganic into organic matter. The food of plants consists of the inorganic compounds, carbonic acid, ammonia and water, along with small quantities of certain mineral salts. From these, and from these only, plants are capable of elaborating the proteinaceous matter or protoplasm, which constitutes the physical basis of life. Plants, therefore, take as food very simple bodies, and manufacture them into more complex substances... On the other hand no known animal possesses the power of converting inorganic compounds into organic matter, but all, mediately or immediately, are dependent in this aspect upon plants. All animals, as far as is certainly known, require ready-made proteinaceous matter for the maintenance of existence, and this they can only obtain in the first instance from plants ... Plants, therefore, are the great manufacturers in nature, animals are the great consumers."
But this is very far from spontaneous generation, and quite in keeping with facts which can be observed by all of us. The fact is that frantic efforts have been made to prove spontaneous generation, but those, who would have hailed the discovery with delirious delight, have been obliged to own there is no proof whatever.
Darwin himself declared that spontaneous generation was " absolutely inconceivable."
His co-discoverer, or rather co-inventor of an unproved and unprovable theory, Alfred Russell Wallace, said:- " The first vegetable cell must have possessed altogether new powers, Here we have indications of a new power at work."
Again he writes in one of his last essays:- " Finally, Dr. Schafer assures us that, as supernatural intervention is unscientific, we are compelled to believe that living matter must have owed its origin to causes similar in character to those which have been instrumental in producing all other forms of matter in the universe; in other words, to a process of gradual evolution. I submit that, in view of the actual facts of growth and organization, as here briefly outlined, and that living protoplasm has never been chemically produced, the assertion that life is due to chemical and mechanical processes alone is quite unjustified. Neither the probability of such an origin, nor even its possibility, has been supported by anything which can be termed scientific facts or logical reasoning " Everyman, October 18th, 1912.
Years have rolled by and in spite of the strides made in inventions and knowledge these words remain true.
Alfred Watterson McCann writes:- " Science can assemble every element known to exist in the grain of wheat—proteins, nucleoproteins, lecithins, phosphotides, carbo-hydrates, fats, colloids, sulfur, phosphorus, iodine, chlorine and fluorine salts of iron, potassium, calcium, magnesium, manganese, sodium, silicon, including the extraordinary substances known as vitamins, BUT SCIENCE CAN'T MAKE THE COMBINATION SPROUT IN THE GROUND" (God—or Gorilla, p. 99).
Again:- " The writer has seen scientific 'milk' made of the soja bean. The writer has also seen artificial honey made on a 'scientific' formula. The former kills babies: the latter kills bees" (God—or Gorilla, p. 98).
Pasteur made " rigorous experiments " as to spontaneous generation. Even Haeckel, not too scrupulous in his statements, has to admit:—" Pasteur showed convincingly that organisms never appear in infusions or organic substances when they are sufficiently boiled and the atmosphere that reaches them has been chemically purified."
To this Professor Huxley gives his support. He writes:- " With the particulars of M. Pasteur's experiments before us, we cannot fail to arrive at his conclusions; and that the doctrine of spontaneous generation has received a final coup de grace." The Origination of Living Beings.
Lord Kelvin is still more positive. He wrote:- " I am ready to accept as an article of faith in science, valid for all time and in all space, THAT LIFE IS PRODUCED BY LIFE, AND ONLY BY LIFE."