CHAPTER VII.
GENERATION IN BRUTE BODIES AND LIVING BODIES. SPONTANEOUS GENERATION.
Protoplasm a substance which continues—Case of the crystal—Characteristics
of generation in the living being—Property
of growth—Supposed to be confined to the living being—Fertilization
of micro-organisms—Fertilization of crystals—Sterilization
of crystalline and living media—Spontaneous
generation of crystals—Metastable and labile zones—Glycerine
crystals—Possible extinction of a crystalline
species—Conclusion.
We have not yet exhausted the analogies between a crystal and the living being. The possession of a specific form, the tendency to re-establish it by redisintegration and the existence of a kind of nutrition are not sufficient to constitute complete similarity. It still lacks a fundamental character, that of generation. Chauffard some time ago, in an attack which he made upon the physiological ideas of his day, aptly exhibited this weak point. "Let us disregard," he said, "those interesting facts relative to the acquisition of a typical form—facts that are common to the mineral world as well as to living beings. It is none the less true that the crystalline type is in no way derived from other pre-existing types, and that nothing in crystallization recalls the actions of ascendants and the laws of heredity."
This gap has since been filled. The work of
