f# 



250 



THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



primarily indicated by Heterogenta^ it seems to us that 

 all the necessities of the case will be met by the 

 introduction of the one new term ^ Archebiosis/ This 

 will permit the limitation of the word ^ Heterogenla' (or 

 ' Heterogenesis"), to the sense originally given to it in 

 Burdach's definition^ and, as we have seen, to the sense 

 in which it has almost invariably been employed^. 



It is a matter of altogether secondary importance 

 whether the individualisation of the portion of the 

 matter of an organism (with power of independent 

 development) takes place during the life of the organ- 

 ism or after its death* As we have already seen, an 

 organism is an organic whole made up of a number of 

 partially independent living units. The death of the 

 organism we have compared to the arrest of motion in a 

 complex machine • it does not at once entail the death 

 of the matter entering into its composition. There is a 



1 The word ' Heterogenese' was first used by Breschet in the article 

 'Di'vlatio7i Organique,' in the first edition of the ' Dictionnaire de Medecine' 

 (t. vi. 1823). He divided monstrosities into four classes : (i) Ageneses, 

 (2) Hypergeneses, (3) Diplogdneses, and (4) Heterogenfeses ; and these 

 he proposed to describe in detail in the article ' Monstrnosite' This, 

 however, was never done ; the latter article being written instead by 

 Andral, without reference to Breschet's classification, which was never 

 accepted. In the second edition of the ' Dictionnaire de Medecine/ the 

 article ' Monstruosite ' was written by Ollivier, who, in an unfavourable 

 criticism of Breschet's system, called special attention to the unsatis- 

 factory nature of the division Heterogenfeses, under which were inchided 

 conditions which had no sort of relationship to one another, such as 

 ■albinism, extra-uterine foetation, displacement of viscera, Sec. No objec- 

 tion, therefore, can be made, on the score of previous appropriation, 

 to the transition from ' Heterogenia ' to ' Heterogenesis,' which has 

 gradually been brought about. 



,te niatter of an 

 distinct and i 

 such organ 



J 



gvidual parts 

 Mce fallen upon ' 

 oDdition of mere 



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mnizing chang( 



undergo soli 



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ree' (iS6S, t. I 

 importance, apparentl; 



of either, he pr( 

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 '' #e of as ' Of * 



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under the w 

 ^«d to signify , 



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