Note 42 — PART II.

Mr. G. H. Lewes (‘Fortnightly Review,’ Nov. 1st, 1868, p. 506) remarks on the number of writers who have advanced nearly similar views. More than two thousand years ago Aristotle combated a view of this kind, which, as I hear from Dr. W. Ogle, was held by Hippocrates and others. Ray, in his ‘Wisdom of God’ (2nd edit., 1692, p. 68), says that “every part of the body seems to club and contribute to the seed.” The “organic molecules” of Buffon (‘Hist. Nat. Gen.,’ edit. of 1749, tom. ii., pp. 54, 62, 329, 333, 420, 425) appear at first sight to be the same as the gemmules of my hypothesis, but they are essentially different. Bonnet (‘Œuvres d’Hist. Nat.,’ tom. v., part i., 1781, 4to edit., p. 334) speaks of the limbs having germs adapted for the reparation of all possible losses; but whether these germs are supposed to be the same with those within buds and the sexual organs is not clear. Prof. Owen says (‘Anatomy of Vertebrates,’ vol. iii., 1868, p. 813) that he fails to see any fundamental difference between the views which he propounded in his ‘Parthenogenesis’ (1849, pp. 5-8), and which he now considers as erroneous, and my hypothesis of pangenesis: but a reviewer (‘Journal of Anat. and Phys.,’ May 1869, p. 441) shows how different they really are. I formerly thought that the “physiological units” of Herbert Spencer (‘Principles of Biology,’ vol. i., chaps. iv. and viii., 1863-64) were the same as my gemmules, but I now know that this is not the case. Lastly, it appears from a review of the present work by Prof. Mantegazza (‘Nuova Antologia, Maggio,’ 1868), that he (in his ‘Elementi di Igiene,’ Ediz. iii., p. 540) clearly foresaw the doctrine of pangenesis.