250 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



primarily indicated by Heterogenia, it seems to us that 

 all the necessities of the case will be met by the 

 introduction of the one new term c Archebiosis/ This 

 will permit the limitation of the word c Heterogenia* (or 

 c Heterogenesis 3 ), to the sense originally given to it in 

 Burdach's definition, and, as we have seen, to the sense 

 in which it has almost invariably been employed 1 . 



It is a matter of altogether secondary importance 

 whether the individualisation of the portion of the 

 matter of an organism (with power of independent 

 development) takes place during the life of the organ- 

 ism or after its death. As we have already seen, an 

 organism is an organic whole made up of a number of 

 partially independent living units. The death of the 

 organism we have compared to the arrest of motion in a 

 complex machine ; it does not at once entail the death 

 of the matter entering into its composition. There is a 



1 The word ' Heterogenese' was first used by Breschet in the article 

 'Deviation Organique,' in the first edition of the ' Dictionnaire de Medecine' 

 (t. vi. 1823). He divided monstrosities into four classes : (i) Agenfeses, 

 (2) Hyperg^neses, (3) Diplogdneses, and (4) Heterogenfcses ; and these 

 he proposed to describe in detail in the article ' Monstruosite.' This, 

 however, was never done ; the latter article being written instead by 

 Andral, without reference to Breschet's classification, which was never 

 accepted. In the second edition of the ' Dictionnaire de Mddecine,' the 

 article ' Monstruosite ' was written by Ollivier, who, in an unfavourable 

 criticism of Breschet's system, called special attention to the unsatis- 

 factory nature of the division Heterogenbses, under which were included 

 conditions which had no sort of relationship to one another, such _as 

 albinism, extra-uterine foetation, displacement of viscera,- &c. No objec- 

 tion, therefore, can be made, on the score of previous appropriation, 

 to the transition from ' Heterogenia ' to ' Heterogenesis,' which has 

 gradually been brought about. 



