Having previously shown[24] that living things could appear and multiply in such a flask as M. Pasteur describes--in any flask, in fact,--which had been hermetically sealed during the ebullition of a suitable fluid within; this was deemed to be a result so contradictory to the explanations of M. Pasteur, that it appeared needless to add my testimony, as I could have done, to that of M. Victor Meunier and others, as to the different results obtainable by operating, in M. Pasteur’s fashion, with different fluids. It seemed to me that if organisms were to be procured in flasks from which air had been altogether expelled, it was useless still to urge the preservative virtues of any process of filtration of air--with the object of showing that living things in infusions derived their origin from atmospheric germs. Obviously, if there were no atmosphere, there could be no atmospheric germs present; and if living things were, nevertheless, developed under these exclusive circumstances, how could M. Pasteur or his disciples still expect to convince others that the first living things in infusions always proceeded from pre-existing atmospheric germs--even although it could be shown, that in many cases, when these were filtered off by flasks with narrow and tortuous necks, no living things were developed in such fluids. Granting to the full the truth of such facts, they could do nothing to establish the doctrine of the origin of infusorial life from pre-existing atmospheric germs, so long as it could also be shown that living things might be developed in boiled solutions to which air, instead of being filtered, was never allowed to enter at all. [24] ‘Nature,’ 1870, No. 36, p. 193. It is not, therefore, because I think that some of the experiments which will subsequently be related afford any stronger or more direct support to my own conclusions, but because I think they may do this indirectly--by shaking the faith of many in some of the reasonings of M. Pasteur--that I am induced to give an account of them.[25] [25] If his reasonings can be shown to be quite inconclusive, and if his results can be otherwise explained, some people may, at last, begin to recognize that their blind and mistaken faith in M. Pasteur’s work has been somewhat misplaced.