INHERITANCE 225 



then, or from another point of view at the beginning, 

 a single cellular element represents the very primordial 

 egg-cell. 



The whole cambium, there can be no doubt, must be 

 regarded as the result of a consecutive number of cell- 

 divisions of the one cell from which it originates. So 

 must it be with the ovary. The primordial egg-cell has 

 undergone a long line of consecutive divisions ; the single 

 eggs are the last result of them. 



We now proceed to some considerations which have a 

 certain logical similarity to those which inaugurated our 

 analysis of the differentiation of the harmonious-equipotential 

 systems, though the facts in question are very different. 



Viewed by itself without any kind of prepossessions, as 

 it might be by any one who faces a new problem with the 

 single postulate of introducing new natural entities to 

 use the scholastic phrase as little as possible, the develop- 

 ment of the single egg might be regarded as proceeding 

 on the foundation of a very complicated sort of machine, 

 exhibiting a different kind of construction in the three 

 chief dimensions of space, as does also the organism which 

 is to be its result. 



But could such a theory irrespective of all the ex- 

 perimental facts which contradict it could such a theory 

 stand before the one fact, that there occurs a genesis of that 

 complex-equipotential system, of which our one single egg 

 forms a part ? Can you imagine a very complicated 

 machine, differing in the three dimensions of space, to be 

 divided hundreds and hundreds of times and in spite of 

 that to remain always the same whole ? You may reply that 

 during the period of cell-divisions there is still no machine, 



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