Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 10.djvu/667

Rh be utterly unworthy were I not prepared to trample all influences and motives such as those mentioned under foot, and were I not ready, did I conceive myself to be in error in what was brought before you last year, to avow here frankly and fully in your presence that error. I should be unworthy of the title of a scientific man if my spirit had not been so brought into this state of discipline as to be able to make such an avowal. Why, then, do I not accept those results as proving the doctrine of spontaneous generation? The celebrated argument of Hume comes into play here. When I looked into all my antecedent experience, and into the experience of other men for whom I have the greatest esteem as investigators, it was more easy for me to believe the error of my manipulation, to believe that I had adopted defective modes of experiment, than to believe that all this antecedent experience was untrue. It was my own work that was thus brought to the bar of judgment, and my conclusion was, that I was far more likely to be in error than that the great amount of evidence already brought to bear upon the subject should be invalid and futile. Hence, instead of jumping to the conclusion that these were cases of spontaneous generation, I simply redoubled my efforts to exclude every possible cause of external contamination. This was done by means of doing away with the pipette altogether and using what we call a separation funnel. Here you have a chamber with a pipette entering. This pipette-tube has not a bulb or mouth such as you have here; it is simply closed by a tube of India-rubber, and that again is closed by a pinchcock. Now, here we have an infusion of hay. At present this stopcock stops it. I turn it on; it goes down; I turn it off, and this liquid column is now held by atmospheric pressure. This was introduced into the India-rubber tube, the India-rubber tube being first filled with the infusion, so that no bubble of air could get in. When the separation-funnel was placed thus and the cock was turned on, the liquid was introduced into the chamber without an associated air-bubble. Mr. Cotterell will show you the result of this severe experiment. Here is an infusion of cucumber, the most refractory of all infusions that I have dealt with. It was prepared on December 8, 1876, so that it is between six and seven weeks old. Two days were sufficient to break down this infusion when contamination attacked it; but, by this more severe experiment, it is enabled to maintain itself as clear as crystal, although it has been there for six or seven weeks. You will see by the light behind that it is, as I have described imperfectly clear. You will observe that the infusion is diminished by evaporation, but it is as clear as distilled water, and there it remains as the result of this severe experiment.

Let us now ask how it is that these curious results that I have brought before you were possible; how it is that the results of this year differ so much from those obtained previously. The investigation of this point is worthy of your gravest attention. I am now