56 CRITICISM OF MECHANISTIC THEORY 



definitely ordered assemblage of mechanisms 

 existing in the adult organism. Such a 

 structure must be absolutely definite and 

 inconceivably complex. There is no escape 

 from this assumption ; and to speak of 

 ' plasma ' when we mean such a structure rs 

 clearly absurd. 



This nuclear structure or mechanism must, 

 according to the mechanistic theory, have 

 been formed within a very short period by 

 the union of two others a male and a female 

 one. How two such mechanisms could com 

 bine to form one is entirely unintelligible, 

 and the observed details of the process 

 tend only to make it, if possible, more un 

 intelligible. When we trace each nuclear 

 mechanism backwards we find ourselves 

 obliged to admit that it has been formed 

 by division from a pre-existing nuclear 

 mechanism, and this from pre - existing 

 nuclear mechanisms through millions of cell- 

 generations. We are thus forced to the 

 admission that the germ-plasm is not only 

 a structure or mechanism of inconceivable 

 complexity, but that this structure is cap 

 able of dividing itself to an absolutely 



