254 METAMOEPHOSES OF MAN 



inevitable consequence is to throw doubt 6n all the 

 hitherto implicitly accepted facts regarding virginal 

 generation. Indeed, the revision of most of these 

 facts appears to me to be quite necessary. Before 

 accepting the word parthenogenesis, it is evidently 

 essential to be perfectly certain that the reproductive 

 body is an ovum and not a bud, enclosed in a more or 

 less solid envelope. In order to do this, it is necessary 

 to refer to the origin of the formation in question. 

 To my mind, every reproductive body which has not 

 the form of a germinal vesicle, with its germinal spot, 

 belongs to the second category ; it should possess this 

 double and fundamental character in order to be 

 placed in the first one. 



To jndge from what we already know, the result 

 of this revision will be to diminish considerably the 

 number of instances of true parthenogenesis. Will 

 it erase them all from the book of science ? I think 

 not. In this regard I have much pleasure in coin- 

 ciding with those confreres whose opinions I opposed 

 in the preceding pages. Without going so far as 

 Owen, Huxley, or Lubbock, I think that a series 

 of intermediate stages exists between the ovum and 

 the bud.* We have seen that such is the case with 



Lubbock before they were published, in order to ascertain the 

 accuracy of his own views. 



# It is evident that, according to my view, there is quite an 

 investigation to be made ; an investigation which is essential to 

 the progress of science. Hence it will be understood how much 

 pleased I was to see Mr. Lubbock engaged in. this labour, in the 

 last writings of his which I have seen, and which tend to bear out 

 some of the views which I have already put forward (" Notes on 

 the Generative Organs and on the Formation of the Egg in the 

 Annulosa." — Philosophical Transactions, 1861). 



