CAUSES OF VAKIATION 129 



Psychogenesis. It is, I think, quite evident that 

 amphimixis, fission, and physiogenesis together do 

 not give a complete explanation of the phenomena 

 of variation. Something more is wanted ; and, the 

 closer the phenomena are studied, the stronger be- 

 comes the conviction that we must look to some 

 other agent as the principal cause of variation. 

 This agent can only be mind. We have already 

 seen that mind exists in every living cell ; and, what- 

 ever it may be , it is not a passive but an active agent , 

 which must exert an important controlling influ- 

 ence over all the internal movements of the cell. 



I will take as an illustration one of the earliest 

 variations that took place in protoplasm, viz., the 

 formation of the nucleus. A little consideration 

 shews that it could not have been due to external 

 conditions ; for the first defenceless piece of protor 

 plasm, floating on the sea, must have been lefes 

 capable of resisting the action of external agencies 

 than it afterwards became. And if these agencies 

 were capable of producing this change in proto- 

 plasm, they must have produced it at once. Also, 

 if some protoplas.ni could be thus influenced, all 

 would have been influenced in the same manner ; 

 and some portions could not have withstood these 

 agencies up to the present day while other portions 

 succumbed. These considerations throw out all 

 hypotheses which depend on external agencies ; and 

 the process, whatever it was, must have been an 

 internal one. Germinal selection fails, because we 

 cannot conceive that the formation of the nucleus 

 was due to the special nourishment of certain 



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