224 LEISURE-TIME STUDIES. 



or "nuclei" " germinal centres," as the physiologist terms 

 them are abundantly to be descried within most of the 

 tissues. Imbedded amongst the fibres of muscles, for ex- 

 ample, are to be seen the germs from which new muscular 

 fibres will be developed; and in the brain itself, such 

 reproductive bodies are to be observed. Thus the growth 

 and continuance of our mental existence may be shown 

 to be dependent on the presence of these new particles, 

 which are destined to renew in a material sense those powers 

 which, of all others in man's nature, most nearly approach 

 the immaterial and spiritual. 



Nor, lastly, is the problem of existence and structural 

 complexity lessened in any degree by the consideration that 

 man's frame, as well as that of all other animals, originates 

 from a minute germ, composed primitively of a microscopic 

 speck of living matter, and exhibiting in its earliest stages 

 the essential features of one of the minute cells or units of 

 his tissues. Through the powers with which the living germ- 

 particle has been endowed, it is capable of passing through 

 a defined series of changes, and of developing therefrom a 

 being of more or less complicated kind ; whilst the germ 

 itself must be regarded as transmitting in some fashion or 

 other, and in a material form, the likenesses which link parent 

 and offspring together in so close and intimate a union. 



Applying the reasoning of the theory of pangenesis to 

 the explanation of heredity and likeness in the light of the 

 physiological evidence thus briefly detailed, we are required 

 to bear in mind that, as an established fact, the cells of 

 which a living being is composed increase and multiply to 

 form tissues and organs ; the new cells retaining the form 

 and essential characters of the parent-cells. The cell, in 

 short, is formed, is nourished, grows, and reproduces its like, 

 as does the body of which it forms part. And botanists and 

 zoologists would inform us that lowly plants and animals, 

 each consisting of but a single cell, not only exist, but carry 

 on the functions of life as perfectly, when regarded in relation 

 to the wants of their existence, as do the highest animals or 



