THK PRESENT POSITION OF THK THEORY OP ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 117 



(//) "Our first question of the evolution theory is whether, 

 after the cooling of the earth's surface, one, several, or 

 very numerous original cells have appeared on it. . . . 

 We must consider it very improbable that only at one 

 single point in the earth one single cell has appeared ; the 

 prospect that it would keep alive and multiply would be 

 of the slightest. But if there were several, say even a 

 dozen, original cells, we could not speak of the blood- 

 relationship of all plants and animals ; and if several 

 original cells, why not millions ? " 

 Professor Otto Hamann, of Berlin, in a pamphlet on "The 

 Descent of Man," quotes Oskar Hertwig's opinion in support of his 

 own view (if I understand him aright) that there were as many 

 original atoms (as he calls them) as there are species of animals, but 

 this cannot be what Professor Bateson means when he speaks of a 

 multiple origin of life. 



I do not know whether I may mention another paragraph in Pro- 

 fessor Bateson's address. He says : — 



" Modern research lends not the smallest encouragement or 

 sanction to the view that gradual evolution occurs by the 

 transformation of masses of individuals, though that fancy 

 has fixed itself on popular imagination." 



Now in Dr. Alfred Bussel Wallace's World of Life, in replying 

 to an objection of Herbert Spencer's that any variation, to be of 

 any use to a species, would require a number of concurrent varia- 

 tions, he says : — 



(e) " The argument is entirely fallacious, because it is founded 

 on the tacit assumption that the number of varying indi- 

 viduals is very small. . . . But all these assumptions are 

 the very reverse of the known facts. The numbers of 

 varying individuals in any dominant species (and it is only 

 these which become modified into new species) is to be 

 counted by millions." 



May I ask — are we to conclude that modern research has upset 

 this argument of Dr. Wallace 1 



As regards Mendelism, the origin of variations has always been 

 shrouded in mystery, but the discoveries of Mendel show that, in 

 certain cases at all events, variation is governed by definite natural 



