GERM DOCTRINE OF BONNET. 269 



sistency were never denied, not even in the development of the 

 germs of the higher animals. If, on the other hand, all parts 

 are not present, if some are yet to be added as new formations, 

 by the operation of natural laws, then the completion of the 

 germ will mean epigenesis. 



EVOLUTION UNCHANGED. 



Which view did Bonnet take ? Chap. IV, Part X, of the Pa- 

 lingtnesie supplies an answer, which removes any doubt as to 

 Bonnet's continued adherence to the doctrine of preformation, 

 and at the same time clears him from the imputation of having 

 surrendered unwittingly to epigenesis. 



The chapter in full : 



(1) "It is by the aid of such principles that I attempt to 

 account for the regeneration of a similar organic whole. But 

 when it is a question of explaining the reproduction of a dis- 

 similar organic whole, it seems to me that I am under philo- 

 sophic obligation to assume that this whole preexisted in a 

 germ properly so called, in which it was completely designed on 

 a very small scale. I assume, then, that a tail, a leg, pre- 

 existed originally under the form of a germ, in the great organic 

 whole in which they were appointed to develop. I consider 

 this whole as a piece of ground, and these germs as seeds 

 sown in this ground, and kept against the future needs of the 

 organized being. 



(2) " Thus I should be led to think that there are at least four 

 principal kinds of organic preformation. The first kind is that 

 which determines the regeneration of similar composites, for 

 example, a bark, a skin, a muscle, etc. I say that, strictly 

 speaking, these sorts of composites do not preexist in a germ 

 which exactly represents them in a reduced size, but tJiey are 

 formed by the development and interlacement of a multitude of 

 slender gelatinous filaments that belong to the old whole which 

 nourishes and makes them expand in every direction. These 

 filaments are not properly genns of bark, germs of skin, etc., but 

 they are small consistent parts or elements of a bark, a skin, 

 etc., which does not yet exist, and which will owe its existence to 

 the complete evolution and to the close union of all the filaments. 



