156 HEREDITY. 



But self-nourishment is not the only thing to be 

 explained by elective affinities. Growth and forma- 

 tive power must be accounted for, and these in every 

 different type of organism must be peculiar. Here, 

 then, a third and fourth infinitude of affinities are 

 needed. 



But we must also account for reproduction. We 

 must account for the co-ordination of tissue with 

 tissue. So here are six kinds of incalculably com- 

 plex labyrinths through which these affinities must 

 wander without error or bewilderment. Draw circles 

 around each of the other sets of affinities as you did 

 around the first set, and you will find them just as 

 complex. There must be sphere within sphere ; and 

 every one of these affinities must be accounted for 

 by the qualities possessed by the atoms of the ori- 

 ginal germ from which all life has descended. The 

 affinities must work, wheel within wheel, endlessly; 

 and at last they must bring into existence a being 

 that is a unit, always one thing from birth to death. 

 Destroy the co-ordinating class of affinities, and the 

 others would explain nothing. We reach here, there- 

 fore, the necessity of a co-ordinating power. 



Professor Delphino of Florence, looking with his 

 keen Italian eye upon Darwin's hypothesis of pan- 

 genesis, said, as many scholars have affirmed since, 

 that it requires eight subsidiary hypotheses. But 

 not eight only : eight hundred, rather, are required. 

 There must be these different offices performed by 

 every living thing, and the movement of the gem- 

 mules must be accounted for by affinities practically 





