The freedom of science in the modern state : A discourse delivered at the third general meeting of the 50th conference of the German Association of Naturalists and Physicians at Munich, on the 22nd of September, 1877. With a new pref. by the author. Translated from the German, with the author's sanction.

  • Virchow, Rudolf, 1821-1902.
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The freedom of science in the modern state : A discourse delivered at the third general meeting of the 50th conference of the German Association of Naturalists and Physicians at Munich, on the 22nd of September, 1877. With a new pref. by the author. Translated from the German, with the author's sanction. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Gerstein Science Information Centre at the University of Toronto, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Gerstein Science Information Centre, University of Toronto.

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    spicuous, than in tlie very province of the doctrine of generation. The question of the first origin of organic beings, which lies at the basis of advanced Darwinism, is of very high antiquity. Who first tried to discover its solution is absolutely unknown. But when we figure to ourselves the old popular doctrine, according to which all possible living beings, whether animals or plants, sprang always from a clod of earth,—in some cases a very little clod —we should at the same time remember that the famous doctrine of generatio cequivoca, or eplgenesis, is closely connected with the former, and has appeared in all the notions held for centuries. The doctrine of spontaneous generation has now again been taken up in connection with Darwinism; and I cannot deny that there is a sort of strong temptation to adopt the iJtimate con- clusion of the evolution theory, and, after setting forth the whole series of living forms, from the lowest protista to the highest human organism, to proceed to link on this long series to the in-