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smaller than the matured animal ; but on what ground do we 
reason that small things are the originals of larger things ? 
Are not these small things brought forth of larger ? Beyond 
doubt they are. If to give being to individual living objects 
be to give origin, then it is the large that give origin to the 
small, not the small that originate the greater. Is there not 
a radical mistake in the notion of origin that seeks for it 
among infinitesimals ? When men insist on finding the true 
idea of the origin of things by means of the microscope, do 
they not invert the order of a sound philosophy ? I see no 
way of escaping the conclusion that they do so. If by the 
most powerful combination of light and lenses that could be 
invented we should discover the minutest germ that human 
eyesight can rationally hope to see, that germ would still be 
the product of a larger parent ; and hence the discovery would 
still leave the order of nature, so far as known, to be that of 
the larger giving origin to the smaller — not the smaller giving 
origin to the larger. 
Moreover, it is not the germ that gives character to the 
matured organism — it is confessedly the matured organism 
that gives character to the germ. That character is developed 
merely , as the growth of the individual goes on. The 
“ varieties,” of which so much is made in this controversy, are 
accounted for, by Darwin himself, chiefly not by their being 
traced to their embryos, but beyond these to affections of the 
matured organs of reproduction. It is by these affections of 
the matured organs that he regards these varieties as origi- 
nating in the germ or embryo.* This is, beyond question, 
finding the origin of character in the parent, and not in the 
embryo. Why then should originals be sought for in em- 
bryonic littleness and not in matured greatness ? 
It is quite true that the individual, when once originated , 
is developed from small to great ; but philosophy is not, in 
this matter, in search of growth or development, but of origin. 
Whether we are bent on finding the true idea as to the 
beginning of individuals, or of kinds, we seem to be carried 
beyond germs and into parents. Once having got the germs, 
we have no difficulty as to their growth. The character of the 
germ determining all the great features of the individual to be 
developed from it, but not determining the character of the 
next germ in succession, we are driven away from germs in 
looking for origin. The reproductive organs being affected, 
not by germinal character, but by external conditions acting 
upon them, and only through them on the germ, compels us to 
* See Origin of Species, p. 8, 1866. 
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