54 
give such movement as even a cell with life possesses, and to 
give such powers as could regulate and increase that move- 
ment so as to issue in the immense results that form the sub- 
ject-matter of the natural history of earth, are thoughts almost 
infinitely at opposites. I feel, indeed, as if it were hard to 
believe that Darwin thought what he wrote when he penned the 
words on which we are remarking. 
This appears all the more difficult of belief when we turn to 
his ideas at another point. He says , — “ Some authors believe 
it to be as much the function of the reproductive system to 
produce individual differences, or very slight deviations of 
structure, as to make the child like its parents.” This Darwin 
proceeds to modify, and says “ that the reproductive system 
is eminently susceptible to changes in the conditions of life ; 
and to this system being functionally disturbed in the parents 
I chiefly attribute the varying or plastic conditions of the 
offspring.”* Here Darwin represents “ some authors” as 
believing that which is indeed the natural result of his own 
theory of creation. If a parent creature had certain powers 
breathed into it, such as could regulate and determine future 
varieties, then it must be the function of the reproductive 
system in that creature to produce differences of all sorts. 
But this is just what he proceeds to disprove ! It is not by 
the powers breathed into the producer, but by the functional 
disturbance of the reproductive system, and that through 
means external to the creature altogether, that the varieties 
are caused ! Elsewhere he speaks of the effect produced on 
the growing individual by external circumstances ; but when 
we carefully follow out his ideas, it is by the effect of those 
circumstances on the reproductive system, and through that 
on inheritance, that these circumstances have any influence in 
giving rise to variations. This throws us back again on the 
theory of Pangenesis. 
Observe Darwin's own illustration of the working of this 
imaginary law. He says, — “ If one of the simplest Protozoa be 
formed, as it appears under the microscope, of a small mass of 
homogeneous gelatinous matter, a minute atom thrown off from 
any part and nourished under favourable circumstances would 
naturally reproduce the whole ; but if the upper and lower 
surfaces were to differ in texture from the central portion, 
then all three parts would have to throw off atoms or gem- 
mules, which when aggregated by natural affinity would form 
either buds or the sexual elements.” f In what way could 
external conditions, then, account for variations in the forms 
* Origin of Species, pp. 157, 158. 
t Variation of Flants, &c., vol. ii. p. 376. 
