22 THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. [CHAP. 



difficulties exactly where they were. It is a question, also, 

 whether the hypothesis of " Pangenesis " 1 may not be 

 found rather to encumber than to support the theory it is 

 intended to subserve. However, the work in question 

 treats only of domestic animals, and probably the next 

 instalment will address itself more vigorously and di- 

 rectly to the difficulties which seem to us yet to bar the 

 way to a complete acceptance of the doctrine. 2 



If the theory of Natural Selection can be shown to be 

 quite insufficient to explain any considerable number of 

 important phenomena connected with the origin of species, 

 that theory, as the explanation, must be considered as 

 so far discredited. 



If other causes than Natural (including sexual) Selection 

 can be proved to have acted if variation can in any cases 

 be proved to be subject to certain determinations in special 

 directions by different means than Natural Selection, it then 

 becomes antecedently probable that it is so in other cases, 

 and that Natural Selection depends upon, and only supple- 

 ments, such means; which conception is opposed to the 

 pure Darwinian position. 



Now it is certain, a priori, that variation is obedient to 

 some law, and therefore that " Natural Selection " itself 



1 "Pangenesis" is the name of the new theory proposed hy Mr. 

 Darwin, in order to account for various obscure physiological facts, such, 

 e.g., as the occasional reproduction, by individuals, of parts which they 

 have lost ; the appearance in offspring of parental, and sometimes of remote 

 ancestral, characters, &c. It accounts for these phenomena by supposing 

 that every creature possesses countless indefinitely-minute organic a.toms, 

 termed "gemmules," which atoms are supposed to be generated in every 

 part of every organ, to be in constant circulation about the body, and to 

 have the power of reproduction. Moreover, atoms from every part are 

 supposed to be stored in the generative products. 



2 These anticipations of the Author have not been fully realized in 

 Mr. Darwin's most recent work, "The Descent of Man." 



