TO 

 COLLEGE LIBRARY, , 



X] PANGENESIS. 225 



include many dormant gemmules derived from their grand- 

 parents and more remote progenitors, but not from all their 

 progenitors. These almost infinitely numerous and minute 

 gemmules must be included in each bud, ovule, spermato- 

 zoon, and pollen-grain." We have seen also that in 

 certain cases, a similar multitude of gemmules must be 

 included also 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 subdivision of 

 such component part, and from every cell, thread, or fibre, 

 entering into the composition of such subdivision. More- 

 over, not only from all these, but from each and every suc- 

 cessive stage of the evolution and development 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 consequences 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 

 says : 3 " Excessively minute and numerous as they are 

 believed to be, an infinite number derived, during a long 

 course of modification and descent, from each cell of each 

 progenitor, could not be supported and nourished by the 

 organism." 



But apart from these matters, which will be more fully 

 considered further on, the hypothesis not only does not 

 appear to account for certain phenomena which, in order 

 to be a valid theory, it ought to account for ; but it seems 

 absolutely to conflict with patent and notorious facts. 



How, for example, does it explain the peculiar repro- 

 duction which is found to take place in certain marine worms 

 certain annelids ? 



8 " Animals and Plants under Domestication," vol. ii., p. 402. 



