238 BERKELEY, ADDRESS AT NORWICH. 



formation of new nuclei, the number of which exactly corre- 

 sponds with that of the new cells. 



It would be unj^ardonable to finish these somewhat desul- 

 tory remarks Avithout adverting to one of the most interesting 

 subjects of the day, — the Darwinian doctrine of Pangenesis. 

 After the lucid manner, however, in which this doctrine was 

 explained by Dr. Hooker in his opening address, I should be 

 inclined to admit it altogether had I not looked at it from a 

 somewhat different point of view, so that I should not be 

 trespassing upon your time in going over the same ground. 

 Others, indeed, as Owen and Herbert Spencer, have broached 

 something of the kind, but not to such an extent, for the 

 Darwinian theory includes atavism, reversion, and inheri- 

 tance, and embraces mental peculiarities as well as physical. 

 The whole matter is at once so complicated, and the theory 

 so startling, that the mind at first naturally shrinks from the 

 reception of so bold a statement. Like everything, however, 

 which comes from the pen of a writer whom I have no hesi- 

 tation, so far as my own judgment goes, in considering by 

 far the greatest observer of our age, whatever may be 

 thought of his theories when carried out to their extreme 

 results, the subject demands a careful and impartial con- 

 sideration. Like the doctrine of natural selection, it is sure 

 to modify, more or less, our modes of thought. Even sup- 

 posing the theory unsound, it is to be observed, as Whewell 

 remarks, as quoted by our author, " Hypotheses may often 

 be of service to science when they involve a certain portion 

 of incompleteness, and even of error." Mr. Darwin says 

 himself that he has not made histology an especial branch of 

 study, and I have therefore less hesitation, though " impar 

 congressus Achilli," in expressing an individual opinion that 

 he has laid too much stress on free-cell formation, which is 

 rather the exception than the rule. Assuming the general 

 truth of the theory, that molecules endowed with certain 

 attributes are cast off by the component cells of such infi- 

 nitesimal minuteness as to be capable of circulating with the 

 fluids, and in the end to be present in the unimprcgnated 

 embryo cell and spermatozoid, capable of either lying dor- 

 mant or inactive for a time, or, when present in sufficient 

 potency, of producing certain definite effects, it seems to me 

 far more probable that they should be capable under favor- 

 able circumstances of exercising an influence analogous to 

 that which is exercised by the contents of the pollen tube or 

 spermatozoid on the embryo sac or ovum, than that these 

 particles should be themselves developed into cells ; and 

 under some such modification I conceive that the theory is 



