X.] PANGENESIS, 239 



In order that every living creature may be thus fur- 

 nished, the number of such gemmules in each must be 

 inconceivably great. Mr. Darwin says : l " In a highly 

 organized and complex animal the gemrnules thrown off 

 from each different cell or unit throughout the body must 

 be inconceivably numerous and minute. Each unit of each 

 part, as it changes during development and we know 

 that some insects undergo at least twenty metamorphoses 

 must throw off its gemmules. All organic beings, 

 moreover, include many dormant gemmules derived from 

 their grandparents and more remote progenitors, but not 

 from all their progenitors. These almost infinitely nume- 

 rous and minute gemmules must be included in each bud, 

 ovule, spermatozoon, and pollen grain." We have seen 

 also that in certain cases a similar multitude of gem- 

 mules must be included in every considerable part of the 

 whole body of each organism ; but where are we to stop ? 

 There must be gemmules not only from every organ, but 

 from every component part of such organ, from every sub- 

 division of such component part, and from every cell, 

 thread or fibre entering into the composition of such sub- 

 division. Moreover, not only from all these, but from 

 each and every single stage of the evolution and develop- 

 ment of such successively more and more elementary 

 parts. At the first glance this new atomic theory has 

 charms from its apparent simplicity, but the attempt thus 

 to follow it out into its ultimate limits and extreme conse- 

 quences seems to indicate that it is at once insufficient and 

 cumbrous. 



Mr. Darwin himself is, of course, fully aware that there 

 must be some limit to this aggregation of gemmules. He 



1 "Animals and Plants under Domestication," vol. ii. p. 366. 



