Pasteur's Experiments
On the third day God created the trees and green herbs; on the fifth and sixth He created living creatures. Those who assert that God created everything at once, and that the things He had called into being were developed successively on the several days of creation, are greatly mistaken. It is quite impossible that the germs of vegetation should have existed on the first day, for the earth was then in a state of incandescence, and fire destroys life, both vegetable and animal. Moreover, out of lifeless matter life cannot be evolved: omne vivum ex vivo. Pasteur, the professor of chemistry in Paris, who has made for himself a world-wide reputation, proved the truth of this axiom by a series of experiments. He boiled different kinds of water and filled bottles with them, which were then hermetically sealed, and left standing for a year. At the lapse of that time he examined the water with the aid of a microscope, to ascertain if any animalculse were in it. No trace of any living creature was to be discovered in these bottles, whereas in every single drop of water which had been exposed to the air hundreds of living creatures were found to exist. Thereupon he exposed the glasses of water to the action of air which had passed through red-hot tubes, but no animal life was to be found in them. He next exposed them to air which had passed through tubes partially stuffed with wool; the result was the same. Finally the vessels containing water were placed in the open air for a minute only, and in a few hours’ time the water
