322 THE DOCTRINE OF DESCENT.. 



consequence of the preponderating divergent movements of the 

 molecules in different directions, two or more centres of attrac- 

 tion are now formed in the homogeneous plasma, which hence- 

 forth act attractively on the individual substance of the simple 

 mould, and thereby induce its fission, or paitition, into two or 

 more portions (reproduction). Each part forthwith rounds itself 

 again into an albuminous individual, or mass of plasma, and the 

 eternal process begins again, of attraction and disruption of the 

 molecules, producing the phenomena of exchange of substance, or 

 nutrition, and reproduction." 



Relying on the known peculiarities of the combinations of 

 carbon, Haeckel has .attributed to this substance the most im- 

 portant part in his representation of the first development of life 

 and the physiological phenomena of the lowest organisms. This 

 is the " carbon theory " so strongly deprecated by his antagonists. 

 Minds would be less heated on the subject were it remembered 

 that a refutation of this " adventurous attempt," as Haeckel terms 

 it, to assist the idea of genesis, would not change a hair in the 

 compulsory logical necessity of acknowledging the evocation of 

 life by natural means. The arguments against the carbon theory 

 have been developed, among others, by Preyer, " Ueber die Er- 

 forschung des Lebens (Jena, 1873). It is shown that carbon, 

 in its present terrestrial conditions, points almost exclusively to 

 organic origin, and, as yet, no source of carbon has been de- 

 monstrated adequate for the first formation of living bodies on the 

 earth. 



" A. R. Wallace, The Malay Archipelago (3rd ed. : London, 

 1872), and Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection (2nd 

 ed. : 1871). 



"" " The hypothesis of Pangenesis, as applied to the several 

 great classes of facts just discussed, no doubt is extremely com- 

 plex, but so assuredly are the facts. The assumptions, how- 

 ever, on which the hypothesis rests cannot be considered as 

 complex in any extreme degree ; namely, that all organic units, 

 besides having the power, as is generally admitted, of growing 

 by self-division, throw off free and minute atoms of their con- 

 tents, that is, gemmules. These multiply, and aggregate them- 



