Chap. II. INDIVIDUALITY AMONG ACALEPHS. 95 



Whatever views are correct concerning the oiigin of specie.s, one thing is certain, 

 that as long as they exist they continue to produce, generation after generation, 

 individuals which differ from one another only in such peculiarities as relate to their 

 individuality. The great defect in Darwin's treatment of the subject of S2)ecies lies 

 in the total absence of any statement respecting the features that constitute indi- 

 viduality. Surely, if individuals may vary within the limits assumed by Darwin, he 

 was bound first to show that individuality does not consist of a sum of hereditary 

 characteristics, combined with variable elements, not necessarily transmitted in their 

 integrity, but only of variable elements. That the latter is not the case, stands 

 recorded in every accurate monograph of all the types of the animal kingdom upon 

 which minute embryological investigations have been made. It is known tluit every 

 individual egg undergoes a series of definite changes before it reaches its mature 

 condition ; that every germ formed in the egg passes through a series of meta- 

 morphoses before it assumes the structural features of the adult ; that in this 

 development the differeirces of sex may very early become distinct ; and that all 

 this is accomplished in a comparatively very short time, — extremely short, indeed, 

 in comparison to the immeasuraljle periods required by Darwin's theory to produce 

 any change among species ; and yet all this takes place without any deviation from 

 the original type of the species, though under circumstances which would seem most 

 unf\ivorable to the maintenance of the type. Whatever minor difterences may exist 

 between the products of this succession of generations are all individual pcculiantics, 

 in no way connected with the essential features of the sjoecies, and therefore as 



races are preserved ; while all liis facts go only to better, than Darwin's preservation of favored races, 



substantiate the assertion that favored individuals The difficulty would only be to prove that they 



have a better chance in the struggle for life than agree with the facts of nature. It might be as- 



others. But who has ever overlooked the fact that sumed, for instance, that any one primary being 



myriads of individuals of every species constantly contained the possibilities of all those that have 



die before coming to maturity ? What ought to be followed, in the same manner as the egg of any 



shown, if the transmutation theory is to stand, is, animal possesses all the elements of the full-grown 



that these fiivorcd individuals diverge from their individual ; but this would only remove the diffi- 



speciiic type ; and neither Darwin nor anybody else culty one stej) further back. It would tell us 



has furnished a single fact to show that they go on nothing about the nature of the operation by which 



diverging. The criterion of a true theory consists the change is introduced. Since the knowledge we 



in the facility with which it accounts for facts now have, that similar metamorphoses go on in the 



accumulated in the course of long-continued investi- eggs of all living beuigs, has not yet put us on the 



gations, and for which the existing theories afforded track of the forces by which the changes they 



no explanation. It cannot, certainly, be said that undergo are brought about, it is not likely that by 



Darwin's theory will stand by that test. It would mere guesses we shall arrive at any satisfoctory 



be easy to invent other theories that might account explanation of the very origin of these beings 



for the diversity of species quite as well, if not themselves. 



