METHODS OF LIFE'* GENESIS. gg 



ural Selection does its work. The Earth-life 

 may be conceived as unfolding from its first 

 protoplasmic sameness into the latest differ- 

 entiation through this mediating Homoiogen- 

 esis, which thus is in its way a bridge be- 

 tween the beginning- and end of vital forms, 

 especially in the view of Darwin, in whose 

 mind, however, the Earth-life is more implied 

 than expressed. 



Here we are to note the new phase of Bio- 

 genesis, which springs from the so-called Doc- 

 trine of Mutation, or the sudden birth of a 

 different species from that of the parent. 

 This theory was some years ago brought to 

 the notice of the scientific world specially by 

 Hugo De Yries, a Dutch botanist, who ob- 

 served a flower, the primrose, bringing forth, 

 not merely a new individual similar to itself, 

 but a new species quite distinct from itself. 

 So Heterogenesis again came to the front, 

 now supported by the close observation of 

 the trained scientist. De Yries does not deny 

 the Darwinian evolution by slight differences, 

 but grafts upon it his additional principle. 

 Thus there would seem to be at work in Xa- 

 ture both kinds of generation of species 

 the slow and the instantaneous. This brings 

 a fresh conception into science. It would ap- 

 pear that every kind of plant and animal may 

 vary in an hitherto unsuspected way, namely, 



