THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 603 



only in part , and he has attempted to work from above 

 downwards, whilst in this philosophy the safest and 

 most trustworthy route is certainly to be found by 

 working upwards from simpler to more and more com- 

 plex organisms. It is not surprising, therefore, that 

 under these circumstances — amidst the conflict of new 

 views with old beliefs — some inconsistencies should 

 have crept into his writings. And^ as it appears to 

 me, nothing could be more thoroughly opposed to the 

 spirit of the Evolution philosophy than Mr. Darwin's 

 hypothesis of Pangenesis ^. 



All the facts which this contradictory hypothesis 

 was destined to explain can be much more simply 

 interpreted (so far as they are to be explained at 

 present) by Mr. Herbert Spencer's counter hypothesis 

 concerning <^ physiological units' — the truth of which, 

 in an enlarged sense, has now, I think, been definitely 

 established by the results of numerous experiments. 

 And if Mr. Spencer should be induced, by the evidence 

 which has now been brought forward, to believe in the 

 continuous independent formation of living matter in 

 the present day, he will, perhaps, be led to modify 

 some of his statements concerning the absence in 

 living matter of internal proclivities to organiza- 

 tion- and would thus obliterate the chasm which at 

 present separates us, and prevents my more complete 

 accordance with his biological views. For a belief 

 in the continued occurrence of Archebiosis and of 

 ^ See p. 98. 



