Definition of "spontaneous generation" []

• See abiogenesis. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The doctrine of spontaneous generation exercising a vestigial influence over his mind, he hesitated to con - clude from his discoveries that it must represent in fact something biologically impossible."
• "In the Augustinian synthesis, there was thus no essential conflict between an original spontaneous generation of all species and the biblical teaching of their creation by God; on the contrary, the divine fiat, in the absence of pre-existing parents, was the equiva - lent of a spontaneous origin."
• "Although spontaneous generation did not square well with his doctrine of causality, Aristotle preferred not to ques - tion its factualness, but rather to view it as an"