METHODS 31 



call the characters of a living being or not-living body are 

 the elements of the analytical description which we make 

 of them for our personal needs and according to the caprice 

 of our fancy. Such characters, therefore, exist only inasmuch 

 as we create them for our use. We can describe the herring 

 in a hundred thousand different ways, by cutting it up in 

 small cubes or in thin slices, the contents of which we I 

 analyse successively. Darwin chose the division into cells ; 

 and he consequently supposed that each cell of the herring's 

 body is represented in the egg by an invisible gemmule 

 which is its representative particle. 



Although the division into cells has a more biological 

 look than a division into thin slices or parallelopipedons, 

 Darwin none the less chose it at random. Consequently 

 it had few chances to be exactly that analysis of the herring 

 which is represented in the egg ; and, previous to the cellular 

 theory, some other Darwin might have imagined a quite 

 different representation. A lover of simplicity might even 

 reduce the analysis of the herring to a greatly condensed 

 expression by asserting that the herring has only one char- 

 acter, namely, herringhood, or the property of being a 

 herring. Then it would be sufficient that this single char- 

 acter should have a determinate existence in the egg ; and this 

 we are sure it has since it is the very expression of the 

 phenomenon of heredity. Darwin for a single herringhood 

 substituted several million cellhoods, quite as mysterious 

 and much more hypothetical. 



Every one agrees as to this fact the egg contains the 

 elements necessary to determine the existence of the adult 

 under those conditions in which its development takes 

 place. But this precisely is the one important thing to know 

 What are these necessary elements ? In other words, by 

 what process must we analyse the herring in order that its 



