A 
410 LOTSY, CURRENT THEORIES OF EVOLUTION. 
drawn from them can have decisive weight. JENNINGS himself ad- 
mits that the possibility of sexual unions, and consequently of 
hybridization is not excluded in his experiments with Rhzzopoda. 
A more serious objection could, at first sight, be derived from 
the great diversity among Flagellate-groups like the Peridineae, 
which reproduce, as far as we know, asexually only. In the first 
place however, no ,,mutations” as far as I know have been described 
in this group, in the second place we must not forget that very 
much simpler Flagellates, like Chlamydomonas possess sexual 
reproduction, so that, even if no sexual reproduction among Peri- 
dineae should exist, they may yet very well have been derived from an- 
cestors which did reproduce sexually and consequently could 
hybridize. In this respect it would be interesting to know whether 
Peridineae are haploid or diploid, in the latter case perhaps 
apogamic, organisms. 
Another objection which has been made against my views, is 
one, rather based on sentiment than on any other consideration, 
to wit that it is inconceivable how from a hybrid between two 
invertebrates a vertebrate could arise. Even if it were, I fail 
to see how this could be inconceivable to Dr. DENDY, who raised 
the objection, because he himself sees no difficulty in imagining 
the origin of a vertebrate from one invertebrate. 
The last objection I am aware off, is put interrogatively : „how do 
you explain the origin of the first diversity ?” 
This of course is a philosophical question, raised on an assumption, 
to wit, that at the beginning there was no diversity, a standpoint 
very akin to the one of creation of the universe out of nothing. 
It seems to me that creation out of nothing is quite inconceivable, 
and certainly outside the pale of science and that the idea that all 
organisms must have arisen from a single kind of urplasma is 
a mere survival of the creation-myth which ascribes the origin 
of all races of mankind, black, red, yellow or white to a single 
Adam and Eve. wi 
We know of course nothing of the way in which the very simplest 
forms of life have arisen, and as long as this is the case I see no 
reason to give any preference to the belief that but one kind of 
urplasma has arisen above the more general assumption that diffe- 
rent kinds of urplasma arose, in other words, that diversity of life 








