160 THE CASE AGAINST EVOLUTION 



ing biparental inheritance, by contributing its quota of chromo- 

 somes to the zygotic complex. Hence, it is only in the former 

 function, i.e. of initiating cleavage in the egg, that a chemical 

 excitant can replace the sperm. In any case, it is evident that 

 these experiments do not constitute an exception to the law of 

 genetic cellular continuity. The artificially activated egg comes 

 from the ovaries of a living female sea urchin, and in this there 

 is small consolation for the exponent of abiogenesis. The 

 terse comment of an old Irish Jesuit sizes up the situation 

 very aptly: "The Blue Flame Factory," he said, "has an- 

 nounced another discovery of the secret of life. A scientist 

 made an egg and hatched an egg. The only unfortunate 

 thing was that the egg he hatched was not the egg he made." 

 How an experiment of this sort could be interpreted as an 

 artificial production of life is a mystery. The only plausible 

 explanation is that given by Professor Wilson, who traces it 

 to the popular superstition that the egg is a lifeless substrate, 

 which is animated by the sperm. The idea owes its origin to 

 the spermists of the 17th century, who defended this doctrine 

 against the older school of preformationists known as ovists. 

 It is now, however, an embryological commonplace that egg 

 and sperm are both equally cellular, equally protoplasmic, 

 and equally vital. 



The phenomena of the life-cycle in organisms find their ex- 

 planation in what, perhaps, is inherent in all living matter, 

 namely, a tendency to involution and senescence. This ten- 

 dency, in the absence of a remedial process of rejuvenation, 

 leads inevitably to death. Living matter seems to "run down" 

 like a clock, and to stand in similar need of a periodic "rewind- 

 ing." This reinvigoration of protoplasm is accomplished by 

 means of several different types of nuclear reorganization. 

 Since no nuclear reorganization occurs in somatogenic re- 

 production, there seem to be limits to this type of propaga- 

 tion. Plants, like the potato and the apple, cannot be propa- 

 gated indefinitely by means of tubers, shoots, stems, etc. The 

 stock plays out in time, and, ever and anon, recourse must 



