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Moreover, the germ of a child contains plastidules derived 
through its parents, not only from grand-parents, but from 
great-grand-parents, and, in fact, from a long line of ancestors. 
Let us start from a primitive “Adam and Eve.” Their 
children came from germs which were wholly derived from 
their bodies; the germs of the children of these children con- 
tained, mixed with the modified plastidules of their imme- 
diate progenitors, some of the original plastidules of the first 
parental pair; and so on in each succeeding generation. 
The further removed an ancestor is, the smaller is, of course, 
the quantity of his share in the constitution of the germ, and, 
other circumstances being equal, the smaller his influence 
upon the character of the progeny. ‘To express the idea 
arithmetically : in each succeeding generation, the numerator 
remaining the same, the denominator of the fraction of the 
set of plastidules from a particular ancestor increases; while, 
at the same time; the number of sets of ancestral plastidules 
increases. In the course of a great number of generations, it 
may be that the plastidules of a particular or primitive ances- 
tor have become exhausted, so that the germ of the progeny 
no longer contains any of them. 
Dr. Elsberg has given to his hypothesis the name of regen- 
eration, because ancestors are assumed to be, to a certain 
extent, bodily, and to that extent in every other respect, born 
again in their progeny. He calls it also the preservation of 
organic molecules, because certain plastidules are supposed to 
be for a long time preserved, and transmitted from generation 
to generation; or the preservation of organic forces, for the 
same reason. Stated without the qualification necessitated 
by possible exhaustion of plastidules, and applied to all 
organisms, it is: that the germ of every derivative living 
being contains plastidules of its whole ancestry. 
The modification of the doctrine of evolution which the 
author attaches to the acceptance of his hypothesis, is chiefly 
that the organisms now living have not descended from the 
same individual lower forms, but from similar forms separated 
in origination by time, and that both origination and evo- 
lution have been from the beginning and are still going 
on. The primary living being which started on its evolu- 
tion (which is regeneration according to the laws of 
adaptation and heredity) first in time, is, other — cir- 
cumstances being equal, most highly developed ;—which 
means that it may be stated as generally true that the most 
highly-developed organisms are so, simply because they are 
the oldest in organic existence. 
