On the Regeneration Hypothesis. 
183 
It will readily be admitted by everybody that the impregnated 
ovum from which a child proceeds, consists of matter (of plasti- 
dules) derived from the bodies of its parents ; in the same manner 
the germs from which each of these parents was developed existed 
in the bodies of their parents ; and it requires but little reflection 
on the incontestably very great divisibility of matter to understand 
that actual material particles of the grandparents may be contained 
in the germs of the grandchild. If we add to our argument proofs 
and illustrations of the dependence of function upon matter, and 
point to the various laws of heredity, especially to the transmission 
to grandchildren of resemblances and peculiarities of grandparents, 
the way is clear to the exposition that the germ of a child contains 
actual particles of matter, i. e. plastidules, of all its ancestors. By 
thus proceeding backward in tracing the genealogy of man, I have 
more than once succeeded in obtaining the assent of very strong 
opponents of the theory of evolution to my views of the develop- 
ment of man down to his descent from “ Adam and Eve.” One 
advantage of this hypothesis is that its adoption does away with the 
relevancy of the most usual arguments against Darwinism,* and 
greatly facilitates the acceptance of the evolution theory by both 
the lay and scientific public. 
I call it the hypothesis of regeneration because according to it 
the ancestors are to a certain extent bodily, and therefore also in 
every other respect, born again in their progeny. 
Commencing with a parental pair, Adam and Eve, we may 
assume that their children came from germs which were wholly 
derived from their bodies ; that the germs of the children of these 
children contained, mixed with the possibly modified plastidules of 
their immediate progenitors, some of the original plastidules of the 
first parental pair ; and so on in each succeeding generation. To 
express this hypothesis arithmetically, I might say that in each 
succeeding generation the numerator remaining the same, the 
denominator of the fraction of each set of ancestral plastidules 
increases. 
But we do not rest with the assumption of Adam and Eve. 
Let us suppose that under appropriate circumstances the combina- 
tion of the requisite elements has given rise to the simplest 
protists, moneres, “ protoplasm.” (And in this connection I would 
in parenthesis say what everybody must admit, viz. that if all the 
requisite conditions are present, the conversion of inorganic 
elements into living matter must necessarily take place. No one 
who considers the subject seriously doubts that at some past time 
in the history of our globe such conversion has taken place, the 
difference among men being that some ascribe it to the exercise of 
direct creative agency in each individual case, while others ascribe 
it in the first instance to the agency of properties inherent in 
* See Thesis 4, at end of article. 
