104 HEREDITY. 



reproductive organs or buds which generate new organ- 

 isms, but the units of which each individual is composed. 

 These assumptions constitute the provisional hypoth- 

 esis which I have called pangenesis." (Animals and 

 Plants under Domestication, vol. ii., chap, x., Ameri- 

 can edition, pp. 369, 370.) 



Every unit or cell, during each stage of the devel- 

 opment of every organism, throws off its gemmules. 

 What smooth language for the multitudinous num- 

 bers that must be thrown off ! Each stage may mean 

 every three minutes, for a new stage is reached in 

 some rapidly developing plants in every three times 

 sixty seconds. 



"If one of the protozoa be formed, as it appears 

 under the microscope, of a small mass of homoge- 

 nous gelatinous matter, a minute particle or gemmule 

 thrown off from any part, and nourished under favor- 

 able circumstances, would reproduce the whole ; but, 

 if the upper and lower surfaces were to differ in tex- 

 ture from each other and from the central portion, 

 then all three parts would have to throw off gem- 

 mules, which when aggregated by mutual affinity 

 would form either buds or the sexual elements, and 

 would ultimately be developed into a similar organ- 

 ism. Precisely the same view may be extended to 

 one of the higher animals ; although in this case 

 many thousand gemmules must be thrown off from 

 the various parts of the body at each stage of devel- 

 opment; these gemmules being developed in union 

 with pre-existing nascent cells in due order of suc- 

 cession." (Ibid, p. 371.) 



