grubs and mouldiness," [was suggested by a recent controversy upon the
origin of life, in which the experiments of Dr. Bastian, then
Professor of Pathological Anatomy at University College, London, which
seemed to prove spontaneous generation, were shown by Professor
Tyndall to contain a flaw. Huxley had naturally been deeply interested
from the first; he had been consulted by Dr. Bastian, and, I believe,
had advised him not to publish until he had made quite sure of his
ground. This question and the preparation of the course of Elementary
Biology [See below.] led him to carry on a series of investigations
lasting over two years, which took shape in a paper upon "Penicillium,
Torula, and Bacterium", first read in Section D at the British
Association, 1870 ("Quarterly Journal of Micr. Science" 1870 10 pages
355-362.); and in his article on "Yeast" in the "Contemporary Review"
for December 1871. He laboriously repeated Pasteur's experiments, and
for years a quantity of flasks and cultures used in this work remained
at South Kensington, until they were destroyed in the eighties. Of
this work Sir J. Hooker writes to him:--

You have made an immense leap in the association of forms, and I
cannot but suppose you approach the final solution...

I have always fancied that it was rather brains and boldness, than
eyes or microscopes that the mycologists wanted, and that there was
more brains in Berkeley's [Reverend M.J. Berkeley.] crude discoveries
than in the very best of the French and German microscopic
verifications of them, who filch away the credit of them from under
Berkeley's nose, and pooh-pooh his reasoning, but for which we should
be, as we were.

In his Presidential Address, "Biogenesis and Abiogenesis" ("Collected