52 
seek the first link in the chain of being in the mature pro- 
ducer, and not in the germinal or embryonic product. What 
will a philosopher of the popular school say to this ? 
Here, however, we come somewhat more directly on the 
ideas of Darwin. His theory of origin, which he calls “ Pan- 
genesis,” is founded (perhaps to him unconsciously, but really 
founded) on that of the matured organism originating the 
germ and giving it all its character. His ideas are incon- 
sistent with the germ's originating or giving character to the 
matured being. He puts his theory himself in these words : — ■ 
“ The whole organization,” he says, “ in the sense of every 
separate atom or unit, reproduces itself.” The ovule or seed, 
under this notion, consists of multitudinous gemmules 
“ thrown off from each separate atom of the organism.”* We 
shall see the inherent absurdity of this theory afterwards ; 
meanwhile, it is clear that it proceeds upon the principle that 
the germ receives its being and character entirely from the 
matured organism, and is inconsistent with any thought of 
the germ giving origin or character to the matured being*. 
It is not possible on such a theory to follow the chain of 
things logically backward to a real origin which shall not be 
a parent rather than a germ. This, moreover, is in perfect 
accordance with Nature's own order. However inconsistent, 
Darwin is right so far here. 
But we come now to another of this great naturalist's ideas 
of origin. We may quote the whole passage, in which it is 
most clearly expressed. Ple'says : — 
It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many 
plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the branches, with various 
insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and 
to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each 
other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been 
produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, 
being growth with reproduction ; inheritance which is almost implied by 
reproduction ; variability from the indirect and direct actions of the external 
conditions of life, and from use and disuse ; a ratio of increase so high as to 
lead to a struggle for life, and as a consequence, to natural selection, en- 
tailing divergence of character and the extinction of less-improved forms. 
Thus from the war- of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted 
object that we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the 
higher animals, directly follows. There is a grandeur in this view of life, 
with its several powers having been originally breathed, by the Creator, into 
*■ The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, p. 358, 
1868. 
