Page 126 - The Struggle Against the Religion of Irreligion

experiments were conducted to prove this theory. Some wheat was

placed on a dirty piece of cloth, and it was believed that mice would

originate from it after a while. Similarly, worms developing in meat

was assumed to be evidence of spontaneous generation. Only some

time later was it understood that worms did not appear on meat

spontaneously but were carried there by flies in the form of larvae,

invisible to the naked eye.

Even during the period when Darwin wrote The Origin of Species

the belief that bacteria could come into existence from non-living

matter was widely accepted in the world of science. However, five

years after the publication of Darwin's book, Louis Pasteur announced

his results after long studies and experiments, which disproved

spontaneous generation – a cornerstone of Darwin's theory. In his

triumphal lecture at the Sorbonne in 1864, Pasteur said:

Never will the doctrine of spontaneous generation recover from

the mortal blow struck by this simple experiment. 128

Advocates of the theory of evolution resisted the findings of

Pasteur for a long time. However, as the development of science

unraveled the complex structure of the cell of a living being, the idea

that life could come into being coincidentally faced an even greater

impasse.

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