[Footnote 7:  Needham, writing in 1750, says:—­

“Les naturalistes modernes s’accordent unaninement a etablir, comme une verite certaine, que toute plante vient do sa semence specifique, tout animal d’un oeuf ou de quelque chose d’analogue preexistant dans la plante, ou dans l’animal de meme espece qui l’a produit.”—­Nouvelles Observations, p. 169.

“Les naturalistes out generalemente cru que les animaux microscopiques etaient engendres par des oeufs transportes dans l’air, ou deposes dans des eaux dormantes par des insectes volans.”—­Ibid. p. 176.]

But the skill of the microscope makers of the eighteenth century soon reached its limit.  A microscope magnifying 400 diameters was a chef d’oeuvre of the opticians of that day; and, at the same time, by no means trustworthy.  But a magnifying power of 400 diameters, even when definition reaches the exquisite perfection of our modern achromatic lenses, hardly suffices for the mere discernment of the smallest forms of life.  A speck, only 1/25th of an inch in diameter, has, at ten inches from the eye, the same apparent size as an object 1/10000th of an inch in diameter, when magnified 400 times; but forms of living matter abound, the diameter of which is not more than 1/40000th of an inch.  A filtered infusion of hay, allowed to stand for two days, will swarm with living things among which, any which reaches the diameter of a human red blood-corpuscle, or about 1/3200th of an inch, is a giant.  It is only by bearing these facts in mind, that we can deal fairly with the remarkable statements and speculations put forward by Buffon and Needham in the middle of the eighteenth century.

When a portion of any animal or vegetable body is infused in water, it gradually softens and disintegrates; and, as it does so, the water is found to swarm with minute active creatures, the so-called Infusorial Animalcules, none of which can be seen, except by the aid of the microscope; while a large proportion belong to the category of smallest things of which I have spoken, and which must have looked like mere dots and lines under the ordinary microscopes of the eighteenth century.

Led by various theoretical considerations which I cannot now discuss, but which looked promising enough in the lights of their time, Buffon and Needham doubted the applicability of Redi’s hypothesis to the infusorial animalcules, and Needham very properly endeavoured to put the question to an experimental test.  He said to himself, If these infusorial animalcules come from germs, their germs must exist either in the substance infused, or in the water with which the infusion is made, or in the superjacent air.  Now the vitality of all germs is destroyed by heat.  Therefore, if I boil the infusion, cork it up carefully, cementing the cork over with mastic, and then heat the whole vessel by heaping hot ashes over it, I must needs kill whatever germs are present.  Consequently, if Redi’s hypothesis hold good,