A wider and more general result may be expected than that which bears directly on the relations of science and religion. All intelligent readers of scientific discussions will find discipline from pondering these experiments. They illustrate the toil connected with scientific research, the risks which beset such inquiry, and the limits of scientific investigations. There lies in these experiments a warning of the constant need for falling back not only on the laws of evidence, but also on the laws of reason. The mere conception of "spontaneous generation," rigidly interpreted, were a curiosity, coming wonderfully near a contradiction of scientific thought itself, which seeks for causes, and repudiates uncaused occurrences. There may naturally enough be a discovery of the chemical elements belonging to definite types of organism, or of the form and measure of energy operating in life. Even when surmising "that possibly we may by the help of physical principles, especially that of the dissipation of energy, sometime attain to a notion of what constitutes life, mere vitality, nothing higher," Professor Tait has thought it needful to add, "but let no one imagine that, should we ever penetrate this mystery, we shall thereby be enabled to produce, except from life, even the lowest form of life."[N] If it were suggested that physico-chemical elements could originate life, chemistry would easily supply the ingredients. If it were hinted that reliance might be placed exclusively on the action of air or of heat for producing living organism from inorganic matter, this were to fall back on the old elemental philosophy of ancient Greece, which the thought of Greece easily repudiated without the aid of experimental science. Attention is, however, here concentrated on the failure of these experiments meant to establish "spontaneous generation," and in this failure we find illustration of the fact that supposed conflicts between science and religion are often misunderstandings and nothing more, based on unreliable experiments or unwarranted expectations.