CHAPTER XVI 

 ORIGIN OF THE INDIVIDUAL 



Owing to the imperfection of language the offspring is termed 

 a new animal, but is in truth a branch or elongation of the 

 parent. Erasmus Darwin, 1794. 



A GENERAL background of biological facts and principles 

 has now been established and we are therefore in a position 

 to take up from an advantageous viewpoint some of the 

 broad questions relating to the origin of life and the origin 

 of species, that is the origin of individuals since life and 

 species are merely concepts, and individuals are the realities 

 in living nature. 



A. ORIGIN OF LIFE 



It must seem strange to the reader, with some of the com- 

 plexities of organisms before him, that the best minds up to 

 the seventeenth century saw nothing more incongruous in 

 the spontaneous origin of plants and animals of all kinds from 

 mud and decaying matter, than does the boy of to-day who 

 believes that horse hairs soaked in water are transformed into 

 worms. As a matter of fact, we find that even Aristotle, who 

 laid such broad foundations for the science and philosophy of 

 the organism, believed that certain of the Vertebrates, such 

 as Eels, arose spontaneously. 



Naturally, with the increase of knowledge, the idea of 

 SPONTANEOUS GENERATION was gradually restricted more and 

 more to the lower forms. It remained, however, for Redi 

 during the latter half of the seventeenth century to question 

 seriously the general proposition and to substitute direct 



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