EVOLUTION AND EPIGENESIS. 



213 



When we speak of the organization of the germ as " cut directly 

 from a preexisting parental organization of the same kind," we are 

 not thinking of the definitive organization which belongs to the 

 fully formed organism, but of that primary organization which be- 

 longs to the protoplasm itself. We are so accustomed to connect 

 the idea of organization with the anatomical organs of the adult, 

 that we are apt to forget that there is a primary organization which 

 underlies every anatomical organ. The germ has this primary organ- 

 ization ; it is therefore an organism, and as such may dominate its 

 own development. The "fallacy " which Mr. Bourne finds in my use 

 of the word organism is entirely of his own making. " It is not 

 conceivable," says Mr. Bourne, "that the organism, that is the final 

 aggregate of parts which have been successively formed, dominates the 

 formation of parts without which it has no existence" (p. 122). Who, 

 before Mr. Bourne, ever suggested such a "fallacy"? 



Our present inability to grasp the mechanics of this organ- 

 ization and diagrammatize its ultimate elements may detract 

 from its importance in the eyes of observers who are accus- 

 tomed to find the goal of mental repose in the cell ; but to 

 those who have more thoughtfully .scanned the gap between 

 the cell and the physical molecule, intra-cellular organization 

 will not appear to be a piece of empty speculation. The met- 

 aphysical bugbear of embottement, ad infinitum, is an old and 

 discredited acquaintance. We have seen too many grades of 

 organic units disincased to be frightened at the necessity of 

 venturing beyond the cell-wall. 



Let this " organization " stand for no more than our neo- 

 epigenesists freely concede, namely, that original constitution 

 of the germ, which predetermines its type of development and 

 the form which ultimately distinguishes it from other sf 

 developing under like external conditions, let it stand for 

 nothing more than that, and obviously the standpoint rises to 

 an altitude scarcely dreamed of in the philosophy of Harvey 

 and Wolff. The difference is not merely one of degree ; the 

 prime contention of the old epigenesis, that the organism 

 begins as an entirely new formation, is repudiated. What 

 remains, and what everybody accepts, is, that the definitive 

 organs arise by progressive differentiation, rather than as 



