GEMMATION AND GENERATION. 309 



tliis point, that " things that are equal to the same, are equal 

 to one another ;" so that if the product of the bud and the 

 product of the seed be in all respects identical, there must 

 necessarily be an identity between the seed and l)ud.* The 

 potato-seed and the potato-bud both germinate apart from 

 the parent plant, and both give rise to organisms in all 

 respects identical. " What, let me ask, is included in the 

 statement that the bud can evolve a perfect and complete 

 plant — that it can evolve the flower and the seed ? This : 

 that it must contain within itself the two kinds of cell 

 reo-arded as essential to the constitution of the seed, — as 

 forming the essential characteristics of the seed, namely the 

 ' sperm-cell,' and the ' germ-cell' "f I differ from the cur- 

 rent idea respecting the germ-cell and sperm-cell as essen- 

 tially necessary/ to the seed, and Dr Harvey himself seems 

 to have relinquished the idea in his more recent work ; 

 meanwhile it is sufficient that in both works he has esta- 

 blished the essential identity of bud and seed, and conse- 

 quently of Gemmation and Generation. Wolff long ago 

 tauiiht that the bud was identical with the seed ;t but no 

 one, I believe, has carried this doctrine to its legitimate con- 

 clusion, namely, that Generation is only a form of Growth ; 

 because every one has assumed that the union of two dis- 

 similar cells is the necessary commencement of every genera- 

 tion. Even Owen, who maintains that Gemmation is closely 



* See his two interesting works, Trees and their Nature, 1856; and The 

 Identiti) between the Bud and the Seed, 1857. 

 t Harvey : Trees and their Nature, p. 185. 

 J Wolff : Theorie von der Generation, p. 47. 



