264 BIOLOGICAL LECTURES. 



to confound the doubtful with the probable, and the confession 

 of my ignorance will not cost me a great effort. We are still 

 only at the beginning of things ; why should a philosopher 

 blush not to be able to explain everything ? There are a thou- 

 sand instances where an ( 7 know nothing about it' is worth 

 more than a presumptuous attempt. . . . 



" The polyp is then an organic whole, of which each part, each 

 molecule, each atom, tends continually to produce. It is, so to 

 say, all ovary, all germs. In cutting a polyp into pieces, the 

 nourishing fluid that would have been employed in the growth 

 of the whole, or put to other uses, is turned to the profit of the 

 germs concealed in each portion." (Corps Organ., p. 252-3.) 



To this is appended an important footnote, which shows 

 that the chief modification in the definition of a germ had 

 reference to Hydra solely: 



" I beg the reader to make use here of the remark on which 

 I have strongly insisted in Chap. I of Part IX of the Contem- 

 plation de la Nature ; to wit, that it is not necessary to limit 

 the meaning of the word germ to denote an organic corpuscle 

 which actually incloses, on a very small scale, all the parts that 

 characterize the species; but this signification must be extended 

 to every organic preformation from which an animal may result 

 as from its immediate principle. It should suffice to the end 

 proposed in this work that the laws of multiplication are 

 always constant, although very different in the different orders 

 of animals." 



Concluding, he says : 



" If we do not wish to have recourse to purely mechanical 

 explanations, which experience does not justify and which 

 good philosophy condemns, we must think that the polyp is, so 

 to speak, formed by the repetition of an infinity of small polyps, 

 which only await favorable conditions to come forth." 



This is supplemented by the following footnote : 



"I should not wish this statement, that the polyp is formed 

 by the repetition of an infinity of small polyps, pressed too far. 

 . . . When we are dealing with the polyp, the word germ must 

 be taken in its widest sense ; that is, for every organic preordina- 

 tion of the skin of the polyp-mother from which a little polyp 



