53 
a few forms, or into one ; and that while this planet has gone cycling on 
according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning, endless 
forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.* 
It is not easy to see what Darwin here means by a few 
forms/' or by “ one/' If he mean anything real, he must 
speak of substances — actual living creatures. If he does 
mean actual plants or animals, or a plant or an animal, what 
kind of a plant or animal was this into which the Creator 
breathed originally these “ several powers " ? It is very clear 
that it must have been a parent plant or a parent animal. 
From it, according to Pangenesis, innumerable “ gemmules " 
must have gone off to form the first seed or egg, which it 
produced “ after its kind." But what must that “ kind " have 
been ? Darwin says it was “ simple " ! Pangenesis insists 
that gemmules of all in a germ must have been either in the 
parent of that germ, or in some of the progenitors of that 
parent ; and so atoms of all that belongs to all that have 
come, or will yet come, from this original “ form," must have 
been there ! If this should be admitted as among the 
possibilities of fancy, how then could this “ form " be simple ? 
But we are no less at a loss with another element in this 
theory of creation. There are “ several powers" that are 
“ breathed " into this inexplicable creature that formed the 
parent of all else. What does this mean ? We can fancy 
motion as the result of breathing ; and if any one chooses to 
call this motion “ force," I have no very strong objection to 
the word, for it is still understood as only motion. But when 
a substance (shall we say a minute jelly-fish ?) is said to be 
“ breathed into," and thereby rendered capable of exerting 
such “ powers " as have produced all the variety of living 
Nature, I confess to a feeling of bamboozlement. If we must 
accept Pangenesis, with its myriad atoms, each capable of the 
amazing power (for an atom !) of throwing off ever so many more 
atoms or gemmules, but, after all, go back to the Creator's 
breathing powers into organized beings, rendering the first 
capable of creating all the rest, are we not indulging in very 
incoherent dreams ? I can easily understand what is meant 
by God's giving that movement which we call life, under the 
expressive figure of breathing into objects otherwise stagnant ; 
but it is quite a different thing to understand His breathing 
into a simple substance so as to give it the power of transform- 
ing itself into all the varieties of the living world. To give 
movement, and to give power to regulate and sustain move- 
ment, constitute the subjects of two most distinct ideas. To 
* Origin of Species, p, 577. 
