iv HETEROGENESIS 291 



It is obvious that the only way in which a case of hetero- 

 genesis could be proved would be by actually watching the 

 transformation, and this no heterogenist has ever done ; at 

 the most, certain supposed intermediate stages between the 

 extreme forms have been observed say, between a Euglena 

 and a thread-worm and the rest of the process inferred. 

 On the other hand, innumerable observations have been, 

 made on these and other organisms, the result being that 

 each species investigated has been found to go through a 

 definite series of changes in the course of its development, 

 the ultimate result being invariably an organism resembling 

 in all essential respects that which formed the starting point 

 of the observations : Euglense always giving rise to Euglenae 

 and nothing else, Bacteria to Bacteria and nothing else, and 

 so on. 



There are many cases which imperfect knowledge might 

 class under heterogenesis, such as the origin of frogs from 

 tadpoles or of jelly-fishes from polypes (see Chapter V), 

 but in these and many other cases the apparently anomalous 

 transformations have been found to be part of the normal 

 and invariable cycle of changes undergone by the organism 

 in the course of its development : the frog always gives 

 rise ultimately to a frog, the jelly-fish to a jelly-fish. If 

 a frog at one time produced a tadpole, at another a trout, 

 at another a worm : if jelly-fishes gave rise sometimes to 

 polypes, sometimes to infusorians, sometimes to cuttle-fishes, 

 and all without any regular sequence that would be 

 heterogenesis. 



It is perhaps hardly necessary to caution the reader against 

 the error that there is any connection between the theory of 

 heterogenesis and that of organic evolution. It might be 

 said if, as naturalists tell us, dogs are descended from 

 wolves and jackals, and birds from reptiles, why should not, 



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