"Whoever recalls to mind the lamentable failure of all the attempts made very recently to discover a decided support for the _generatio æquivoca_ in the lower forms of transition from the inorganic to the organic world, will feel it doubly serious to demand that this theory, so utterly discredited, should be in any way accepted as the basis of all our views of life."--Virchow: "The Freedom of Science in the Modern State." "All really scientific experience tells us that life can be produced from a living antecedent only."--"The Unseen Universe," 6th Ed., p. 229. [37] John iii. [38] Rom. viii. 6. [39] Rev. iii. 1. [40] 1 Tim. v. 6. [41] Eph. ii. 1, 5. [42] 1 Cor. ii. 14. [43] "First Principles," 2d Ed., p. 17. [44] 2 Cor. xii. 5. [45] 1 Cor. vi. 15. [46] John xiv. 20. [47] John xiv. 21-23. [48] John xv. 4. [49] Gal. ii. 20. [50] One must not be misled by popular statements in this connection, such as this of Professor Owen's: "There are organisms which we can devitalize and revitalize--devive and revive--many times." (_Monthly Microscopical Journal_, May, 1869, p. 294.) The reference is of course to the extraordinary capacity for _resuscitation_ possessed by many of the Protozoa and other low forms of life. [51] Acts ix. 5. DEGENERATION. "I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I saw and considered it well; I looked upon it and received instruction."--_Solomon._ "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?"--_Hebrews._ "We have as possibilities either Balance, or Elaboration, or Degeneration."--_E. Ray Lankester._