PLAN AND PUEPOSE IN NATURE. 211 



gist cannot but be grateful for such a sentence from such a 

 source. It is needless to say, however, that Mr. Herbert 

 Spencer does not consider Design, as such, worthy of mention 

 in his Synthetic Philosophy. 



25 After this digression we must return to the uni-cellular or 

 non-cellular organisms whicli arose somehoio after the globe 

 had cooled down to the temperature at which low life was 

 possible. How they arose we may not prove ; Darwin even 

 called the question " mere rubbish." These tiny creatures, 

 supposed ancestors of ours, must have then, because they 

 do now under our microscopes, propagated themselves by 

 " fission " or division, by " gemmation " or budding — the two 

 lowest forms of reproduction. The particular problem 

 in building the tree of Man's ancestry from such elements as 

 these which here meet us, is that in this rudimentary method 

 of propagation there is no conceivable place for the occurrence 

 of that cause of variation called by Mr. Wallace* the primary 

 one, viz., amphigony. Darwinf takes a less extreme view of 

 the necessity of amphigony for the production of variability 

 but admits its immense importance. He then proceeds to 

 speak of bud-variations as an exception, but says they 

 occur "rarely under nature." He says also as to the 

 influence of conditions of life on variability,! "We clearly 

 see that the nature of the condition is of subordmate 

 importance in comparison with the nature of the organism 

 in determining each particular form of variation; perhaps 

 of not more importance than the nature of the spark, 

 by which a mass of combustible matter is ignited, has 

 in determining the nature of the flames." Darwin also 

 says,§ " Hence, although it must be admitted that new 

 conditions of life do sometimes definitely affect organic 

 beings, it may be doiibted whether well-marked races have 

 often been produced by the direct action of changed condi- 

 tions without the aid of selection either by man or nature." 

 These admissions of Darwin may be taken as specimens of 

 what is generally allowed by naturalists as to the small 

 influence of change of environment on the production of 



* Darwinism, p. 439. 



+ Origin of Species, 6th Edition, p. 7, 



X ibid., 8. 



§ Animals and Plants under Domestication, vol. ii, p. 292. 



