132 HEREDITY AND ARRANGEMENT " 



been summed together under the name " micro- 

 meristic, " that is small-fragmented, or again, 

 " particulate," since they all postulate the exist- 

 ence in the germ of innumerable small fragments 

 seeds which are capable of growing into 

 complete plants or organs under favourable cir- 

 cumstances. Again, this, even if true, does not 

 by any means exhaust the matter, for it does not 

 explain why the seed of the eye implants itself 

 and grows in the right place in the head instead 

 of making a home for itself, let us say, in the sole 

 of the foot. But again we must pass over that 

 matter. 



There is nothing inherently impossible in this 

 theory ; indeed, if we allow that the transmission 

 of inheritable characteristics is purely material, 

 and it may be, there is only one other conceivable 

 way in which it can occur. It is true that the 

 seeds must be almost innumerable, but the germ, 

 though small, is capable of accommodating an 

 almost innumerable number of independent 

 factors, if the prevalent views as to the constitu- 

 tion of matter are to be believed. And, as it is 

 quite inconceivable that we can ever have 

 microscopes which could detect such minute 

 objects as the ultimate bricks of which the atom 

 no, not even the atoms themselves which com- 

 pose the germ consists, it is impossible that we 

 should be able to say that the seed-theory is 

 untrue. Even if we could see these ultimate 

 constituents it is in the last degree unlikely that 

 they would have any resemblance to the things 

 which are, on this theory to grow from them, 



