GENESIS OF MAN. 45 



organic existence. For while in the former it only serves to 

 supply the omissions or verify the testimony of an array of pa- 

 leontological, anatomical, and chorological facts, in the latter it 

 stands alone as the sole evidence of a tangible character of the 

 development of living forms out of the primordial and unorganized 

 plasma of nature, and indeed from inorganic matter itself. These 

 ontogenetic stages have already been considered, and unavoidable 

 mention made of many of the forms to which they correspond, and 

 whose stamp they bear. 



The deeper problem of the origin of life on the globe is one 

 which strictly belongs to phylogeny, and one which Haeckel has 

 not hesitated squarely and boldly to meet. The doctrine of spon- 

 taneous generation, or archigonia, is by no means so simple as 

 many suppose, and is not to be settled either by the success or 

 failure to originate bacteria, diatoms, and monads, under certain 

 conditions, in organic infusions. 



The only form of generation which has ever yet come within 

 the scope of human observation, and which, from the nature of 

 things, can ever be expected to be directly witnessed by human 

 eyes, is, of course, that wherein the offspring proceeds directly 

 from a known and distinct parentage. This form of generation is 

 called tocogonia, and genesis itself in its widest sense is, therefore, 

 primarily divided into archigonia and tocogonia. 



The exceedingly complicated subdivision of tocogonia must be 

 passed over, as we need consider here only the simpler but still 

 somewhat complex one of archigonia, or original spontaneous 

 generation. Although nothing is perhaps empirically known re- 

 specting this process, its existence as forming the first link in the 

 phylogenetic chain, possesses the highest degree of probability a 

 priori, which is not at all lessened by any empirical failures to sub- 

 ject it to the testimony of the senses. 



The problem divides itself into^two, which Haeckel considers 

 distinct and independent. The phenomenon assumed by the one 

 he calls plasmogonia., in which the genetic process is conceived as 

 taking place in a fluid containing organic matter, which is supposed 

 by some to be essential to the origination of life. The other form 

 of archigonia, on the other hand, conceives the process as taking 

 place in a medium consisting wholly of inorganic elements, and 

 Haeckel accordingly denominates this process autogonia, i. c, un- 



