lief in the origination of man from brutes
by minute, fortuitous variations, it has no force whatever against the
conception of the orderly evolution and successive manifestation of
specific forms by ordinary natural law--even if we include amongst such the
upright frame, the ready hand and massive brain of man himself. [Page 208]

* * * * *

CHAPTER X.

PANGENESIS.

A provisional hypothesis supplementing "Natural Selection."--Statement
of the hypothesis.--Difficulty as to multitude of gemmules.--As to
certain modes of reproduction.--As to formations without the requisite
gemmules.--Mr. Lewes and Professor Delpino.--Difficulty as to
developmental force of gemmules.--As to their spontaneous
fission.--Pangenesis and Vitalism.--Paradoxical reality.--Pangenesis
scarcely superior to anterior hypotheses.--Buffon.--Owen.--Herbert
Spencer.--"Gemmules" as mysterious as "physiological
units."--Conclusion.

In addition to the theory of "Natural Selection," by which it has been
attempted to account for the origin of species, Mr. Darwin has also put
forward what he modestly terms "a provisional hypothesis" (that of
_Pangenesis_), by which to account for the origin of each and every
individual form.

Now, though the hypothesis of Pangenesis is no necessary part of "Natural
Selection," still any treatise on specific origination would be incomplete
if it did not take into consideration this last speculation of Mr. Darwin.
The hypothesis in question may be stated as follows: That each living
organism is ultimately made up of an almost infinite number of minute
particles, or organic atoms, termed "gemmules," each of which has the power
of reproducing its kind. Moreover, that these particles 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 {209}
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 lowest animals and in plants.
Therefore in many of such lower organisms such a congeries of ancestral
gemmules must exist in every part of their bodies, since in them every part
is capable of