GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 813 



sometimes lying dormant from generation to generation, indepen- 

 dent, autonomous, pre-existing from their primal miraculous crea- 

 tion, as descendants, like all higher forms of life f of that one form 

 of " Natural Selection" into which life was first breathed.' Darwin 

 grafts upon this modification of the old evolutional dogma ! his 

 provisional hypothesis of 6 Pangenesis.' (cccvm".) 



In like manner the Evolutionists hold that every single-celled 

 organism, torule, organic molecule, out of the body, arises from a 

 pre-existent germ ; and that such germs abound in the air, in 

 the waters, or wherever any forms of living matter may happen 

 to make their appearance. 



1 Studying under this belief the phenomena described in CXLII., I was led to regard 

 all ' cells ' or organic units concerned in development and repair as the progeny of the 

 primary germ-cell in the ovarium of the mother, and to be in that sense ' derivative.' 

 Save in the case of the hypothetical primordial created iinit, such primary ovarian 

 cell in the Aphis and all sexual organisms I regarded as impregnated. The derivative 

 cells or organic units propagated themselves independently of direct sexual inter- 

 course ; but, that they should not be remotely or indirectly related to the act by which 

 their seat, the developed organism, came to be, in which organism, or its partheno- 

 genetically propagated offspring, the 'cells' subsequently were formed, was to me 

 inconceivable on the then accepted hypothesis of ' pre-existence of germs ' or ' omnis 

 cellula e cellula.' Mr. Darwin, ho\vever, opposes to the above view the remark, " My 

 gemmules" (=niy germ-cells) "are supposed to be formed quite independently of 

 sexual intercourse, by each separate cell or unit throughout the body." (cccvm". ii. p. 

 375.) Yet, his provisional hypothesis of 'pangenesis' assumes that they (' cells,' 'cell- 

 gemmules,' ' units ') "are transmitted from the parents to the offspring " (ib.). But how 

 so (in sexual species), save as the progeny or outcome of the primary impregnated germ- 

 cell in the mother, whence all subsequent development and cell-generation radiated ? 

 Take any case in cccvm"., which ' Pangenesis' is propounded to explain and all the 

 given instances of varieties, malformations, &c., are from sexual organisms as e.g. 

 1 when a stag is castrated the gemmules derived from the antlers of his progenitors 

 quite fail to be developed.' (Ib. ii. p. 399): to each I should reply as to this case: Such 

 stag first existed as an impregnated unit in the oviducal ovum of the mother. By the 

 ' spontaneous fission ' or ' cleavage process ' it must have existed as a mass of impreg- 

 nated gemmules. Assuming, with Mr. Darwin, that some of these gemmules were 

 derived from the antlers of its parent, yet they are not less the progeny of the primary 

 germ-cell which was formed within the ovarium of the female and was fertilised by the 

 male. It may be a defect of power ; but I fail, after every endeavour, to appreciate the 

 ' fundamental difference' between Mr. Darwin's cell-hypothesis of 1 868 and mine of 1849 

 (cxxn. p. 5-8). Both of them I now regard as fundamentally erroneous ; in so far as 

 they are absolutely based on ' pre r existence ' or ' omnis cellula,' &c. No doubt, many 

 cells or organic units are derived from pre-existing cells (vol. i. p. 625) : the pheno- 

 menon of the pale or granulated blood-cells which suggested to me, in 1838, the idea of 

 the genetic mode of formation of the ordinary blood-discs, is a true phenomenon : but 

 such mode of formation is subordinate to a wider law. Under given conditions 

 matter in solution aggregates and shows form ; if inorganic as ' crystal,' if organic as 

 ' spherule': in the one the process is termed 'crystallization,' in the other ' formifac- 

 tion.' If the large 'pale cell' was first filled by fluid holding organic matter in 

 sokition, the smaller granules or atoms it subsequently discharged might be the result 

 of ' formifaction ' : it is at least a more simple, and I believe truer, idea of their origin 

 than that which ascribes such origin to a mysterious genetic act under the name of 

 'proliferation.' (cccvm". vol. ii. p. 374.) 



