What is biogenesis?

Attempts from time to time have been made to discover the secret of natural life. For instance, very extensive experiments were made to ascertain if it could come of its own accord, to see if it could come spontaneously. These experiments have proved beyond a doubt that

LIFE CAN ONLY COME FROM PRE-EXISTING LIFE, that spontaneous generation of life, as it was called, can never be.

This theory of spontaneous generation of life received its death-blow at the hands of that eminent biologist, the discoverer of bacteria, the late Louis Pasteur. His experiments proved conclusively, that if due care was taken to exclude pre-existing life, and to prevent the introduction of fresh life, the result would be purely negative, that is, no life would manifest itself.

The lifeless or inorganic lies at the bottom of the whole, and need not detain us. In the crystal it seems to prophesy the organization which it never attains: for there is a bound here which cannot be passed. No life except from life is the well-ascertained conclusion of science itself.

The lifeless or inorganic lies at the bottom of the whole, and need not detain us. In the crystal it seems to prophesy the organization which it never attains: for there is a bound here which cannot be passed. No life except from life is the well ascertained conclusion of science itself.

Life is thus naturally self-communicative, propagates itself, proceeds from nothing else but life. This is conceded by science today, as far as science can speak in such a matter. It is a thing not manufactured nor evolved, not working up from below, not the product of dead matter, but an imperial power ruling this, even while freely yielding itself to it, permeating and so lifting it into a higher sphere, according to the constant law of progress disclosed by the world as a divine product.

That laborious student of nature, the distinguished author of the Origin of Species, expressed, at the close of it, his belief "in life having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms, or one." Thence would he derive, not only species, but man! Faint indeed was the whisper heard by him in his studies, and even that, how misunderstood! Still he does trace us back to the Creator, though in a way of his own. Others, as laborious, if not so distinguished as he, refuse even this. Biogenesis (birth from the living) concedes, they say, too much. The latent power of matter may effectuate everything, though here their microscopes fail them and the origin of life is for them "not proven."

The vegetable has life; and life is a mystery entirely beyond us. Nothing has demonstrated this better than all the labor that has been now for a good while bestowed upon it in the opposite interest. That it is known only to proceed from life is now admitted even by those whose every hope for their theory depends on the speculation that in another age of the world, somewhere, somewhen, it may have been different. In our present inquiry, we are happily delivered from the necessity of discussing such things. Scripture still leaves it a mystery, and we must: no less real on that account than the countless mysteries that everywhere surround us.

“THE SPONTANEOUS GENERATION OF LIFE”

The teaching of evolutionists was marked by confident assertions without proof, by grand words and high-sounding phrases. “The spontaneous generation of life” was one of their confident assertions, which meant, according to them, that matter, which never had life at any time, such as stone, rock, minerals, etc., would in the course of time become alive, and that without any intervention on the part of the Creator.

This strange theory was confidently asserted again and again, till a French scientist, Professor Pasteur of Paris, made careful and exhaustive tests. He boiled water, so that any trace of animal life, however minute, would be destroyed, and then with great care he chemically purified the air, that had access to this water, so that absolutely pure water and absolutely pure air combined in making reliable tests. These exhaustive tests abundantly proved that there was no such thing as “spontaneous generation of life.” This was generally acknowledged as proved by the scientific world, and was a staggering blow to the evolutionists in their attempt to present creation without a Divine Creator.

Professor Haeckel, widely known in the circle of his scientific friends as being none too careful of the accuracy of his statements, and of being violently anti-Genesis and anti-Bible, was the very last man, we should suppose, to make an admission. He was constrained to acknowledge that “Pasteur showed convincingly that organisms never appear in infusions of organic substances when they are sufficiently boiled, and the atmosphere that reaches them has been chemically purified.”

But this is very far from spontaneous generation, and quite in keeping with facts which can be observed by all of us. The fact is that frantic efforts have been made to prove spontaneous generation, but those who would have hailed the discovery with delirious delight, have been obliged to own there is no proof whatever.

Darwin himself declared that spontaneous generation was “absolutely inconceivable.”

That celebrated scientist, the late Lord Kelvin, declared, “I am ready to accept as an article of faith for all time, and in all space, that life is produced by life and ONLY by life.”

There is no doubt that some scientists were most anxious to prove the theory of spontaneous generation of life. If the experiments had succeeded, supporting their point of view, the discovery doubtless would have been hailed with a wild chorus of impious delight, sweeping over an unbelieving world. God would have been no longer a necessity and politely, or impolitely, would have been bowed out of His own universe.

Charles Darwin announced his considered belief that “spontaneous generation of life” was “absolutely inconceivable.” Lord Kelvin, a prince among scientists, declared, “I am ready to accept as an article of faith in science, valid for all time, and in all space, that life is produced by life, and ONLY BY LIFE.” The late Sir Ambrose Fleming, one of the world’s most prominent scientists, said, “It could be asserted with the utmost confidence, that there is no contradiction or discrepancy, between the certainly ascertained facts of scientific investigation, and the statements of the inspired Scriptures.”