304 DARWINISM STATED BY DARWIN HIMSELF. 



analogous to seeds or buds ... is repugnant to all anal- 

 ogy." But this seems a strange objection, as Thuret has 

 seen the zoospore of an alga divide itself, and each half 

 germinated. Haeckel divided the segmented ovum of a 

 siphonophora into many pieces, and these were developed. 

 Nor does the extreme minuteness of the gemmules, which 

 can hardly differ much in nature from the lowest and 

 simplest organisms, render it improbable that they should 

 grow and multiply. A great authority, Dr. Beale, says 

 that " minute yeast-cells are capable of throwing off buds 

 or gemmules, much less than the ± * ft of an inch in 

 diameter " ; and these he thinks are capable of subdivision 

 practically ad infinitum." 



A particle of small-pox matter, so minute as to be 

 borne by the wind, must multiply itself many thousand- 

 fold in a person thus inoculated ; and so with the con- 

 tagious matter of scarlet fever. It has recently been 

 ascertained that a minute portion of the mucous discharge 

 from an animal affected with rinderpest, if placed in the 

 blood of a healthy ox, increases so fast that in a short 

 space of time "the whole mass of blood, weighing many 

 pounds, is infected, and every small particle of that blood 

 contains enough poison to give, within less than forty- 

 eight hours, the disease to another animal." 



p M The gemmules derived from each part or 



organ must be thoroughly dispersed through- 

 out the whole system. "We know, for instance, that even 

 a minute fragment of a leaf of a begonia will reproduce 

 the whole plant ; and that if a fresh-water worm is 

 chopped into small pieces, each will reproduce the whole 

 animal. Considering also the minuteness of the gemmules 

 and the permeability of all organic tissues, the thorough 

 dispersion of the gemmules is not surprising. That 



