30 



seems, indeed, to have been so felt by the able entomologists 

 cited, who conclude their remarks by confessing, " It is 

 however one of the mysteries of the CREATOR that human 

 intellect cannot fully penetrate*." 



Prof. Morren, a comparatively recent observer of the 

 anatomy and generative oeconomy of the Aphides, and 

 impressed by analogous feelings of the extreme difficulty 

 of the problem, having accepted the hypothesis of spon- 

 taneous generation as it has been applied to the Entozoa, 

 propounded, though not without reserve, a theory that the 

 larval aphides were developed in the body of the virgin 

 parent, like Entozoa, " by the individualization of a pre- 

 viously organized tissue f" Here also is a phrase which, 

 when the meaning of it is analysed, does little more than 

 express the old facts in a new way. When a larval aphis 

 is developed, a new individual exists ; in other words, it 

 has been ' individualized 5 ; and as nothing can come out 

 of nothing, it must have been by the individualization of a 

 previously existing something. The question to be solved 

 is, what is that something, and what has happened to that 

 something to make its individualization under the form of a 

 larval aphis possible and conceivable by us according to the 

 known analogies of other embryonic developments or indi- 

 vidualizations ? That would be the explanation of which 

 we are in quest, one going as far as the explanation which 

 we are able to give, for example, of the development of an 

 ordinarily impregnated ovum ; and, by the proved analogy 

 of the essential condition of the development in the virgin 

 Aphis with that condition in the impregnated ovum, capable 



* Introduction to Entomology, vol. iv. p. 16 1. 



f " A dire vrai, je me refuse a emettre une opinion au milieu d'une 

 tel dedale, et je tiens pour plus philosophique d'avouer son ignorance 

 dans un phenomene ou la Nature nous refuse rneme Tapparence d'une 

 explication. S'il fallait une explication a toute force j'admettrais que la 

 generation se fait ici, comme chez quelques Entozoaires, par individuali- 

 sation d'un tissu precedemment organise"." Annales des Sciences Natu- 

 relles, t. v. 1836, p. 90. 



