ZOOLOGY. 287 



an organism for the egg to live in. If such organism offered the same 

 conditions with those of the individuals now living, why create the egg 

 at all ? Rather than this, it would seem to be a simpler matter to cre- 

 ate the whole animal capable of producing eggs to begin with. If it 

 be asserted that the conditions were not the same, this assertion would 

 seem to be equivalent to the admission of variation, inasmuch as the 

 first egg would be capable of being developed under different circum- 

 stances from the later ones. 



How Prof. Owen meets this difficulty with regard to the first intro- 

 duction of species may be inferred from the following quoted passages : 



" But the conception of the origin of species by a continuously oper- 

 ative secondary cause or law is one thing ; the knowledge of the nature 

 and mode of operation of that law is another thing. One physiologist 

 may accept, another refute or reject, a transmutational or natural-setec- 

 tive hypothesis, and both may equally hold the idea of the successive 

 coming-in of species by law." 



" What I have termed the ' derivative hypothesis ' of organisms, for 

 example, holds that there are coming into being, by aggregation of 

 organic atoms, at all times and in all places, under the simplest unicel- 

 lular condition, with differences of character as many as are the various 

 circumstances, conditions, and combinations of the causes educing them, 

 one form appearing in mud at the bottom of the ocean, another in 

 the pond or the heath, a third in the sawdust of the cellar, a fourth on 

 the surface of the mountain rock, etc., but all by the combination and 

 arrangement of organic atoms through forces and conditions acting 

 according to predetermined law. The disposition to vary in form and 

 structure, according to the variation of surrounding conditions, is great- 

 est in these first formed beings ; and from them, or such as them, are 

 and have been derived all other and higher forms of organisms on this 

 planet. And thus it is that we now find, energizing in fair proportions, 

 every grade of organization from man to the monad." .... 



" Now the foregoing hypothesis is at present based on so narrow and, 

 as regards the origin of life, so uncertain a foundation of ascertained 

 facts, that it can be regarded only as a kind of vantage-ground, arti- 

 ficially raised to expand the view of the outlooker for the road to truth, 

 and perhaps as supporting sign-posts directing where that road may 

 most likely be fallen in with." .... 



" And herein is one main distinction between it (origin of species by 

 natural selection) and the ' derivative hypothesis' which maintains that 

 single-celled organisms, so diversified as to be relegated to distinct or- 

 ders and classes of Protozoa, are now, as heretofore, in course of crea- 

 tion or formation, by the ordained potentiality of seoond causes ; with 

 innate capacities of variation and development, giving rise in a long 

 course of generations to such differentiated beings as may be distin- 

 guished by the term 'plant' and ' animal'; from which all higher ani- 

 mals and plants have, through like influences, ascended and are being 

 ascensively derived. This, as the naturalist knows, is mere hypothesis, 

 at present destitute of proof. But it is more consistent with the phe- 

 nomena of life about us, with the ever-recurring appearance of mould 

 and monads, and with the coexistence, at the present time, of all grades 

 of life rising therefrom up to man, than is the notion of the origin of 

 life which is propounded in Mr. Darwin's book, ' On the Origin of Spe- 

 cies by Natural Selection.' " 



