GERM DOCTRINE OF BONNET. 



249 



of those differences, and perhaps the most skilful naturalist of 

 the first world would have failed to recognize our plants and 

 animals. 



"Envelopment" Renounced. 



Singularly enough Bonnet at first overlooked an obvious and 

 fatal objection to his theory of the resurrection. Its discovery 

 led to the speedy abandonment of the "envelopment" idea, 

 and to the introduction of a new hypothesis that greatly added 

 to the complexity of his doctrine of germs. This was the 

 greatest change which Bonnet's system of speculation under- 

 went. His brief account of it runs as follows : 



" One salient objection, of which I had not at first thought, 

 came to destroy in a moment this whole system, which had 

 begun to please me greatly, it was that derived from men who 

 have been mutilated who have lost the head, a leg, an arm, 

 etc. How could these men be resuscitated with the members 

 that their germ would no longer have ? How could they be 

 made to recover this head in which I had located the seat of 

 personality ? 



" There remained to me, indeed, the resource of supposing 

 that the germ in question inclosed another head prepared by 

 Divine Prescience. But this head would have held another 

 soul ; it would have constituted another personality, and the 

 important point was to preserve the personality of the first 

 individual. 



" I did not hesitate an instant, then, to abandon an hypothe- 

 sis which I should have been able to sustain only with the aid 

 of suppositions that would have clashed more or less with 

 probability. Nature is so simple in her ways that an hypothe- 

 sis loses in probability in proportion as it becomes compli- 

 cated." (Paling., p. 208.) 



" Metamorphosis" the Secret of the Resurrection. 



The theory of "development" remained as originally con- 

 ceived, and the difficulty about the resurrection was disposed 

 of by assuming that there is a soul-bearing, indestructible germ 



