6 
TRANSACTIONS OF THE TEXAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
of this organism effected ? How are the diversely modified properties of 
its myriads of plastidules at last collected in the single receptacle of the 
germ-cell? To this decisive question the theory gives no answer. We 
receive no clue whatever as to how the plastidules of the germ-cell can 
have possibly registered all the multitudinous impressions received by 
the progeny of its precursers, so as now to be fit to reproduce by mem¬ 
ory or otherwise the entire evolutional series of differentiated autono¬ 
mous beings believed to make up the complex organism. Vulnerable 
otherwise at almost every point, Perigenesis fails thus to give any kind 
of solution to the most essential part of the problem of reproduction. It 
keeps silent as to how the diversified properties of the autonomous cell- 
beings come to be represented in the germ-cell. Omitting in this way to 
show from what source the germ-cell receives its reproductive efficiency, 
the theory loses altogether its raison d’etre. It is nowise what it pre¬ 
tends to be, certainly no theory of reproduction. 
Not to squander all my critical ammunition on one particular case, I 
have reserved what I think would have proved the most fatal objection 
to the theory of Perigenesis, in order to apply it to Herbert Spencer’s 
theory of “ Physiological Units,” and therewith to every theory which 
makes new vital units be generated through mere contact of pabulum 
with vital units already formed. Assimilation is a very convenient term. 
But to how many biologists does it remain more than an utterly occult 
operation ? 
No one can more sincerely admire the consummate knowledge, the 
laborious and fruitful investigations, and the highly suggestive biological 
speculations of the celebrated Jena professor. Nevertheless, I venture to 
assert, that whoever believes even the most primitive living being to be 
composed, like crystals, of a mere aggregation of equal molecules, has 
not in the remotest degree gained an insight into the constitution of the 
living substance. Nor can such a one form on so loose a foundation an 
approximately correct conception of the intimate vital process that un¬ 
derlies the functions of organic beings. 
When a biologist has before him under his microscope the germ-cell of 
a high organism, he knows that in this insignificant-looking spherule the 
vast, supremely momentous secret of vitality lies enshrined. Here, min¬ 
imized to the utmost, rest gathered together the cumulated results of ages 
upon ages of phylogenetic elaboration. Presently, in but a few weeks 
or months, will be unfolded from out its microscopic confines to open 
view the matured living being, whose marvelously complex organic 
structure generations of anatomists and microscopists have sought in vain 
fully to unravel. And this astonishingly differentiated structure will be 
vitalized through and through, will display in all its organically inter¬ 
dependent parts the wondrous functions that so strikingly distinguish 
