On the Genesis of Species

rmations without the requisite gemmules.-Mr. Lewes and Professor Delpino.-Difficulty as to developmental force of gemmules.-As to their spontaneous fission.-Pangenesis and Vi

he origin of species, Mr. Darwin has also put forward what he modestly terms "a provisional hypot

cles circulate freely about the organism which is made up of them, and are derived from all the parts of all the organs of the less remote ancestors of each such organism during all the states and stages of such several ancestors' existence; and therefore of the several states of each of such ancestors' organs. That such a complete collection of gemmules is aggregated in each ovum and spermatozoon in most animals, and in each part capable of reproducing by gemmation (budding) in the low

ing from the aggregation of those floating gemmules which come next in order to those of the cut surface, and the successive aggregations of the other kinds of gemmules which come after in regular order. Also, the most ordinary proc

ules derived from their grandparents and more remote progenitors, but not from all their progenitors. These almost infinitely numerous and minute gemmules must be included in each bud, ovule, spermatozoon, and pollen grain." We have seen also that in certain cases a similar multitude of gemmules must be included also in every considerable part of the whole body of each organism, but where are we to stop? There must be gemmules not only from every organ, but from every component part of such organ, from every sub

[220] "Excessively minute and numerous as they are believed to be, an infinite number derived, during a long course o

ot only does not appear to account for certain phenomena which, in order to be a valid theory,

iar reproduction which is found to take pla

DIVIDING SP

med towards the hinder end

nerally succeed? Scarcely less difficult to understand is the process of the stomach-carrying-off mode of metamorphosis before spoken of as existing in the Echinoderms. Next, as to certain patent and notorious facts: On the hypothesis of pangenesis, no creature can develop an organ unless it possesses the component gemmules which serve for its formation. No creature can possess such gemmules unless it inherits them from its parents, grandparents, or its less remote ancestors. Now, the Jews are remarkably scrupulous as to marriage, and rarely contract such a union with individuals not

Jewish race. He says:[223] "If we examine and compare the numerous species of the genus Salvia, commencing with Salvia officinalis, which may pass as the main state of the genus, and concluding with Salvia verticillata, which may be taken as the most highly developed form, and as the most distant from the type, we ob

. According to the theory of Pangenesis, it is necessary to assume that all the gemmules of this anomalous formation, and therefore the mother-gemmule of the cell, and the daughter-gemmules of the special epidermic tissue, and of the very singular subjacent tissue of the endothecium, have been per

s that it (Pangenesis) requires so many subordinate hypothe

as many as eight of these subordinate

es takes place, or may take pl

mmules emitted from ev

ess of the gemm

inity, one of which might be called propa

sexual organs, whether male or female (embryonal vesicle, cells of the embryo, pollen grains, fovilla, antherozoids, spermatozoids), and likewise flow together and b

nly in cells homologous with the mother-cells of the cell from which they originated. In other words, the gemmules from an

remains in a dormant state through many generations in the bodies o

elf by a process of scission into

ects to the alleged necessity of the first subordinate hypothesis, namely, that the emission of gemmules takes place in all states of the cell. But if this is not the case, then a great part of th

art of a gemmule would be an impossible (because a less than possible) quantity. If it is divisible into still smaller organic wholes, as a germ-cell is, it must be made up as the germ-cell is, of subordinate component atoms, which are then the true gemmules. This process may be repeated ad infinitum, unless we get to true organic atoms, the true gemmules, whatever they may be, and they necessarily will be incapable of any process of spontaneous fission. It is remarkable that Mr. Darwin brings forward in support of gemmule fission,

regard it purely as an aggregation of developed gemmules, although these gemmules have been evolved successively one after the other, and one within the other, notwithstanding they elude the conception of the real and true individual, these problematical and invisible gemmules must be regarded as so many individuals. Now, that real, true, living individuals exist in nature, is a truth which is persistently attested to us by our consciousness. But how, then

see whether Pangenesis produces a clearer formula, and one free from unknown elements. The existence of the gemmules is a first unknown element; the propag

d we may ask whether it is more logical to prefer a system which assumes a

il we come to the absolute organic atoms. These atoms, on the other hand, are utterly invisible, intangible; indeed, in the words of Mr. Darwin, inconceivable. Thus, then, it results from the theories in question, that the organic world is reduced to utter unreality as regards all that can be perceived by the senses or distinctly imagined by the mind; while the only reality co

to be little, if at all, superior to anterio

embryo, each particle taking its due place, and occupying in the offspring a similar position to that which it occupied in the parents. In 1849 Professor Owen, in his treatise on "Parthenogenesis," put forward another conception. According to this, the cells resulting from the subdivision of the germ-cell preserve their development

its has an innate power and capacity, by which it tends to build up and reproduce the entire organism of which it forms a part, unless in the meantime its f

of powers, elective affinities, and special tendencies as marked and mysterious as those possessed by the physiological unit of Mr. Spencer, with the single exception that the former has no tendency to build up the whole living, complex organism of which it forms a part. Some may think this an important distinction, but it can hardly be so, for Mr. Darwin considers that his gemmule has the innate power and tendency to build up and transform itself into the whole l

t conditions the simplest organisms develop themselves into relatively large and complex ones. This is not supposed by him to be due to any inheritance of ancestral gemmules, but to direct g

nesis, which moreover, if established, would leave the evolution of individual organisms, when

one of these by no means necessarily includes that of the other. Nevertheless, Mr. Darwin has associated them closely together, and, therefo