BEFORE DARWIN AND AFTER. 



terest of the doctrine of De Vries is that the 

 original germ-cell can break out of its fixed 

 mold transmitted from parent to child, and 

 become a member of a new order; it can de- 

 velop of a sudden the potentialities that have 

 been suppressed hitherto by the regular norm 

 of the organism for uncounted ages. De Vries 

 has shown that even the plant can turn revo- 

 lutionist and defy its traditional limits (see 

 .preceding p. 199), following some hereditary 

 instinct of vegetal freedom. The question 

 rises : Will man ever be able to reach and con- 

 trol this tendency to mutation or sudden trans- 

 formation which lurks in every organism, 

 seemingly in the very act of its generation? 

 This would indeed be the new metamorphosis 

 of living Nature, when we can tap the original 

 fountain of Life, and make it develop what 

 organic shapes we choose, instead of leaving 

 them to blind impulse. 



The doctrine of germinal continuity set 

 forth by Weismann is a great and fruitful 

 thought at which biology is still working. To 

 it we would conjoin the doctrine of De Vries 

 which makes the germ-cell the arena of sudden 

 catastophic changes which appear to be the 

 bursting forth into reality of long-inherited 

 ancestral tendencies previously submerged. 

 Every plant and animal, yea every living 

 genetic cell contains the possibilities of the 

 total Biocosmos. 



