88 LIFE AND ORGANISATION. 



limited to the discovery of formation through cells. Other 

 strange facts and seeming anomalies, in some part indicated 

 by earlier naturalists, have been subjected to more exact 

 enquiry ; and, had we room for it, we might state many most 

 curious results, particularly as regards those phenomena which 

 the researches of Steenstrup and others have disclosed to us. 

 The Greek, 'that musical and prolific language of ancient 

 philosophy,' has been drawn upon so largely for scientific 

 purposes in our own time, that we cannot quarrel with such 

 terms as Metagenesis, Parthenogenesis and Agamogenesis, 

 though somewhat ostentatious as applied to the most minute 

 objects in creation. They serve to betoken what are indeed 

 very strange and complex modes of reproduction ; in which 

 the sexual influence (though not lost, and in some part and 

 form always necessary) is in certain cases so wonderfully 

 concentrated concreted we may express it in the organi- 

 sation, that a dozen generations may be evolved in succession 

 without any renewal of the male influence in reproduction. 

 This fact has been amply established by experiments reach- 

 ing as far back as the days of Eeaumur and Bonnet, and is 

 well exemplified in the instance of the Aphides ; the diversi- 

 ties of which viviparous or oviparous, winged or wingless, 

 alternating or without obvious rule of succession offer a 

 multitude of problems to sober, as well as to speculative 

 thought. This budding forth of a germ principle through 

 successive generations from a first single fertilised germ, 

 while closely connected with the principle of animal meta- 

 morphosis, is the fact which, more than any other, forms the 

 link (very difficult indeed to dissever) between animal and 

 vegetable life. The Entozoa, Polypi, Medusae, &c., all enter 

 into and illustrate this great natural relation. The pheno- 

 mena of fissiparous generation variously and strikingly 

 attest it : those curious cases where entire and repeated 

 division of the animal does, under certain limitations, repro- 



