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Other names are given to the mystery the micellar strings of Naegeli, the biophores of Weismann, the plastidules of Haeckel; they all presuppose millions of molecules peculiarly arranged in the protoplasm. On purely mechanical and chemical principles Tyndall accounts for the growth from the germ of a tree.
To this category belong Darwin’s gemmules, Haeckel’s plastidules, Nägeli’s micellæ, Weismann’s labyrinth of ids, determinants, and biophors within the germ-plasm, and Roux’s ingenious hypothesis of the struggle of parts, which is an attempt to apply the Darwinian principle within the organism in order here also to rebut the teleological interpretation by giving a scientific one. Heredity.
At an earlier date Haeckel had made an attempt in this direction in his theory of the “perigenesis of the plastidules.” Peculiar states of oscillation and rhythm in the molecules of the germ-substance, handed on to it from the parent organism and transferable to all the assimilated matter of the offspring, represent, according to this theory, the principle which impels development to follow a particular course corresponding to the type of the parents.
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