202 THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LIFE 



functional assimilations, all comprised in the same general 

 scheme. 



The first and simplest opinion is this : there exists in the 

 egg some very minute little being, similar to the adult and 

 having only to grow. Observation has shown this hypo- 

 thesis to be inexact ; it left untouched the difficulty of 

 successive functional assimilations, replacing them only 

 by simple assimilations at each point of the persistent 

 organism something which excluded all possibility of 

 variation. And yet it has been generally found so attrac- 

 tive that, when the microscope proved its falsity, scholars 

 like Darwin and Weismann tried to revive it under an equi- 

 valent form that of representative particles. 



I have already (Chap. VI) argued against this artificial 

 decomposition of an adult individual into characters chosen 

 at random, such as would have to be represented in the egg 

 by the invisible particles. Evidently the chicken is deter- 

 mined in the egg, since every time the egg goes right it 

 brings forth a chicken. But the question is how it is deter- 

 mined ; in other words, what are the chicken characters 

 which exist in the egg, just as they exist in the chicken and 

 in the adult hen ? Every a priori hypothesis in such a 

 matter can be only sterile. It is far better to use general 

 expressions, so as not to compromise the future, and in 

 order to narrate facts with as few implicit hypotheses as 

 possible. 



I propose the name of hereditary patrimony for that some- 

 thing which is common to the egg and the successive stages 

 of the animal which issues from it. This hereditary patri- 

 mony is but a handy expression with a view to suppressing 

 all such odd specific appellations as " gallinity," "herring- 

 hood," etc. It may be susceptible of decomposition into 

 distinct elements of multiplication and destruction so inde- 



