I have never been able to trace the development of Torula into a true mould; but it is quite easy to prove that species of true mould, such as Penicillium, when sown in an appropriate nidus, such as a solution of tartrate of ammonia and yeast-ash, in water, with or without sugar, give rise to Toruloe, similar in all respects to T. cerevisioe, except that they are, on the average, smaller.

Take, for example, the singular fact that yeast will increase indefinitely when grown in the dark, in water containing only tartrate of ammonia a small percentage of mineral salts and sugar.

It is only needful to add a minute drop of fluid containing Bacteria, to water in which tartrate, phosphate, and sulphate of ammonia are dissolved; and, in a very short space of time, the clear fluid becomes milky by reason of their prodigious multiplication, which, of course, implies the manufacture of living Bacterium-stuff out of these merely saline matters.

Prepare a solution (much used by M. Pasteur, and often called "Pasteur's solution") composed of water with tartrate of ammonia, sugar, and yeast- ash dissolved therein.[10] Divide it into three portions in as many flasks; boil all three for a quarter of an hour; and, while the steam is passing out, stop the neck of one with a large plug of cotton-wool, so that this also may be thoroughly steamed.

And I have not yet been able to meet with any advocate of Abiogenesis who seriously maintains that the atoms of sugar, tartrate of ammonia, yeast-ash, and water, under no influence but that of free access of air and the ordinary temperature, re-arrange themselves and give rise to the protoplasm of Bacterium.

I should expect to see it appear under forms of great simplicity, endowed, like existing fungi, with the power of determining the formation of new protoplasm from such matters as ammonium carbonates, oxalates and tartrates, alkaline and earthy phosphates, and water, without the aid of light.