Omne vivum ex ovo

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"Omne vivum ex ovo" is Latin for "All live [is] from [an] egg". This is a foundational concept of modern biology. Up into the 19th century it was commonly believed that life forms can appear spontaneosly under certain conditions; for example, that maggots would spontaneously appear in rotten flesh, or that algae would spontaneously form in water, or that eel were generated when horse hairs fell into streams. Only with knowledge of modern cell biology was it established that all currently living organisms are descendants of one or more very similar parent organisms.

This of course says nothing about the question of the origin of life on Earth (or anywhere else in the Universe for that matter), it only speaks about current conditions.

See also: abiogenesis, biogenesis