466 THE BIOCOSMOS HISTORICAL. 



the beginning of the century, in which theory 

 the transmutation of the species was upheld. 

 He sought to account for variation by the use 

 and disuse of organs followed up by heredity 

 in the offspring. Thus Lamarck reached back 

 of Darwin in trying to account for variation, 

 which the latter assumed. Hence after Dar- 

 win arose the new school of biologists called 

 the neo-Lamarckian, which has representa- 

 tives in Europe and America. 



Another significant addition to post-Dar- 

 winian Evolution is the doctrine of De Vries, 

 that new species often appear suddenly, and 

 not merely through ' ' slight, successive, favor- 

 able variations," as Darwin held. This doc- 

 trine showed by experiment that generation 

 of the individual can make a leap at once into 

 a new species, not merely repeating the parent 

 with a little difference. Thus the germ-cell 

 has in it untold possibilities, seemingly all 

 the past of the organic world from the begin- 

 ning; it embraces potentially the totality of 

 all Life, plant and animal. That primordial 

 germ-cell, issuing from the first living stuff 

 (Protobioticon) and individuating itself, per- 

 chance as the primal plant-animal (phyto- 

 zoon), contains implicitly all the organic 

 forms to be evolved in the ages to come, and 

 is still preserved and transmitted in the gen- 

 erative process of the organism. The chief in- 



