_Evolution is not Spontaneous Generation._ There is no necessary connection between the one theory and the other. Spontaneous generation, or birth without parentage, on the part of small or useless creatures was accepted in early times without question. As men began to observe these animals more carefully, the fact of their spontaneous generation was doubted. A great step was made when it was found that to screen meat from flies would protect it from maggots. A greater step came in our own time when it was proved that to screen infusions from air dust is to protect them from putrefaction or fermentation. Fermentation is "life without air." It is the decomposition of sugar by minute creatures who disintegrate it in their life processes. Putrefaction and decay are also the same in nature. There is literal truth in Carlyle's statement that there is still force in a fallen leaf, "else how could it rot?" It is the force of the minute organisms hidden in the leaf, and whose life is the leaf's decay. The decay and death of men from contagious diseases is known to be due to life processes of minute organisms, as is the gangrene which follows unskilful surgery. The study of the "fauna and flora" within living organisms has now become a science of itself, demanding the greatest care in observation and the most complete of appliances. "_Omne vivum ex vivo_," "all life from life," was an aphorism of the naturalists of a century or two ago. It was to them a new and broad generalization. It has not yet been set aside. The classic experiments of Tyndall show that this law applies to all creatures we have yet recognized or classified. As far as science can tell, spontaneous generation is still a myth, having no basis in observation, no warrant in experiment. It remains as a pure deduction from the philosophical conception of Monism, incapable of proof, insusceptible of refutation. The argument for it is chiefly this: Life exists on a globe once lifeless. How did life begin? If not through spontaneous generation, how did it come? Must it not have been by the operation of those laws and forces which through all time change lifeless into living matter? Very likely, but we do not know. We know nothing whatever of such laws and forces, and we gain nothing by veiling our ignorance under a philosophical necessity.