i.i TRANSFORMISM 27 



whose cells are made of unmodified protoplasm. 1 In other 

 words, the genetic power of the fertilized ovum weakens, 

 the more it is spread over the growing mass of the tissues 

 of the embryo; but, while it is being thus diluted, it is 

 concentrating anew something of itself on a certain special 

 point, to wit, the cells, from which the ova or spermatozoa 

 will develop. It might therefore be said that, though 

 the germ-plasm is not continuous, there is at least con- 

 tinuity of genetic energy, this energy being expended only 

 at certain instants, for just enough time to give the requisite 

 impulsion to the embryonic life, and being recouped as 

 soon as possible in new sexual elements, in which, again, 

 it bides its time. Regarded from this point of view, life 

 is like a current passing from germ to germ through the 

 medium of a developed organism. It is as if the organism 

 itself were only an excrescence, a bud caused to sprout by 

 the former germ endeavoring to continue itself in a new germ. 

 The essential thing is the continuous progress indefinitely 

 pursued, an invisible progress, on which each visible organ- 

 ism rides during the short interval of time given it to live. 

 Now, the more we fix our attention on this continuity 

 of life, the more we see that organic evolution resembles 

 the evolution of a consciousness, in which the past presses 

 against the present and causes the upspringing of a new 

 form of consciousness, incommensurable with its ante- 

 cedents. That the appearance of a vegetable or animal 

 species is due to specific causes, nobody will gainsay. But 

 this can only mean that if, after the fact, we could know 

 these causes in detail, we could explain by them the form 

 that has been produced ; foreseeing the form is out of the 

 question.* It may perhaps be said that the form could 



1 Roule, L'Embryologie generate, Paris, 1893, p. 319. 



*The irreversibility of the series of living beings has been well set 

 forth by Baldwin (Development and Evolution, New York, 1902; in 

 particular p. 327). 



