272 THE OVARIAN EGG. 
of life in the individual solve that great mystery 
of the beginning of life in the world. In other 
words, they have endeavored to show that the 
fact of successive generations is analogous to that 
of successive creations, and that the processes by 
which animals, once created, are maintained un- 
changed during the period to which they belong, 
will account also for their primitive existence. 
I wish, at the outset, to forestall any such mis- 
application of the facts I am about to state, and 
to impress upon my readers the difference between 
these two subjects of inquiry, since it by no means 
follows, that, because individuals are endowed 
with the power of reproducing and perpetuating 
their kind, they are in any sense self-originating. 
Still less probable does this appear, when we con- 
sider, that, since man has existed upon the earth, 
no appreciable change has taken place in the ani- 
mal or vegetable world ; and so far as our knowl- 
edge goes, this would seem to be equally true of 
all the periods preceding ours, each one maintain- 
ing unbroken to its close the organic character 
impressed upon it at the beginning. 
The question I propose to consider here is 
simply the mode by which organic types are pre- 
served as they exist at present. Every one has a 
summary answer to this question in the state- 
ment that all these short-lived individuals repro- 
duce themselves, and thus maintain their kinds. 
