THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 1 1 1 



always tend, if left under the same conditions, to 

 develop into structures similar to those from which 

 they had been derived. 



Thus we shall find that it is but a direct conse- 

 quence of their very nature and mode of growth that 

 many Fungi develop various kinds of 'fructification.' 

 And in this case we find that portions (usually called 

 'conidia' or 'spores') into which the living matter 

 divides or buds, have the power — when separated 

 from the parent — of developing, under similar condi- 

 tions, into organisms which resemble those from which 

 they had been derived. Why do they possess such a 

 power? Because, being fragments of living matter 

 formed in, or as parts of, an organism of a given 

 character, they have derived from it (or 'inherited') 

 certain developmental capacities by which, when sepa- 

 rate, they are enabled to grow into organisms like the 

 parent — ^just as a bud from the surface of Hydra viridis 

 will develop into another polype of the same kind. 

 The parent Fungus assumed the organic form which 

 it possessed, because such form had been the joint and 

 necessary product of the ^ conditions,'' acting upon the 

 particular molecular mobilities and modes of growth of 

 plastic new-born living matter. Mr. Spencer says ^ : — 

 ' As certainly as molecules of alum have a form 

 of equilibrium, the octahedron, into which they fall 

 when the temperature of their solvent allows them to 

 aggregate, so certainly must organic molecules of each 



1 ' Appendix to Principles of Biology,' p. 487. 



