Page 134 - The Signs Leading to Faith

The Signs Leading To Faith
132

of coincidences. Such a claim, however, is inconsistent with
the most unassailable rules of biology.

"Life Comes From Life"

In his book, Darwin never referred to the origin of life.
The primitive understanding of science in his time rested on
the assumption that living beings had a very simple structure.

Since medieval times, spontaneous generation, which asserts
that non-living materials came together to form living organ-
isms, had been widely accepted. It was commonly believed
that insects came into being from food leftovers, and mice

from wheat. Interesting 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, maggots developing in rotting meat was as-
sumed to be evidence of spontaneous generation. However, it
was later 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 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, that 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