20 Indications of Continued Formative Influence 
after the completion of its work and consequently is ca- 
pable of renewing it at every favorable opportunity. 
If on account of unusual conditions the regeneration 
of the amputated part proceeds in an abnormal fashion, 
the remaining part continues always in spite of that to be 
capable of normal regeneration. For example: an axolotl 
had a foot bitten off. The foot was reproduced but badly 
formed. This foot was amputated and a third was 
developed which was quite normal.® 
We shall later at a proper place treat of the ill-starred 
attempts of the preformists to bring their theory into 
accord with similar phenomena, and of the arguments 
and the special regenerative processes which the epigene- 
sists have brought forward in support of their theory. 
Here it may merely be noted that while epigenetic theories 
furnish an immediate explanation for all phenomena of 
regeneration, the preformation theory on the contrary 
must have recourse to the addition of complicated sub- 
sidiary hypotheses which are entirely opposed to the 
principal one. 
If the morphological capacity does not reside in the 
somatic cells of the cut surface, which by their multiplica- 
tion produce the regenerated organ, but is outside these, 
it follows that the continuous action exercised upon all 
cells at the end of the regenerated part as also upon all 
cells which do not lie at the cut surface, by the remaining 
part of the organism must be a mediate action exercised 
from a distance, and therefore must traverse intermediate 
cells. 
A yet more striking demonstration of a continued, 
5Darwin: The variation of animals and plants under domestica- 
tion. Eighth impression of the second edition. London, Murray. 
1899. P. 357, 358. 
