(1) The Evolution of Life (2) The Nature and Origin of Life in the Light of New Knowledge

Abstract

(1) DR. H CHARLTON BASTIAN re-affirms his conviction that living organisms continue to arise from not-living material. It is a long time since, in his “Beginnings of Life” (1872), Bastian sought to establish the reality of this “archebiosis” and also of heterogenesis—that strange process by which organisms or parts of organisms of definite kind give rise to organisms of a quite different kind, as when the ovum of the rotifer Hydatina produces the infusorian Otostoma. In 1876–7 there was a notable and useful controversy between Bastian, on the one side, Tyndall and Pasteur on the other, the issue of which seemed to most experts to be that Bastian failed to make good his case for the present-day occurrence of spontaneous generation. The claims of professional work forced the heretic to renounce his investigations for about twenty years, but he has recently been able to return with unabated vigour to the study of both heterogenesis and abiogenesis. His “Studies in Heterogenesis” and his work on “The Nature and Origin of Living Matter” have been already reviewed in NATURE, and we have now before us an account of his recent researches on “archebiosis” and a clear exposition of his views as to “The Evolution of Life.” It is impossible not to admire the author's strong desire to get at the truth, the courage of his convictions, and his incomparable good humour.

(1) The Evolution of Life.

By Dr. H. Charlton Bastian Pp. xviii + 319; with diagrams and many photomicrographs. (London: Methuen and Co., n.d.) Price 7s. 6d. net.

(2) The Nature and Origin of Life in the Light of New Knowledge.

By Prof. Felix Le Dantec. An introductory preface by Robert K. Duncan, author of “The New Knowledge.” Pp. xvi + 250; 21 figures. (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1907.) Price 6s. net.