In all cases the process of evolution consists in a succession of changes of the form, structure, and functions of the germ, by which it passes, step by step, from an extreme simplicity, or relative homogeneity, of visible structure, to a greater or less degree of complexity or heterogeneity; and the course of progressive differentiation is usually accompanied by growth, which is effected by intussusception. This intussusception, however, is a very different process from that imagined either by Buffon or by Bonnet. The substance by the addition of which the germ is enlarged is in no case simply absorbed, ready-made, from the not-living world and packed between the elementary constituents of the germ, as Bonnet imagined; still less does it consist of the "molecules organiques" of Buffon. The new material is, in great measure, not only absorbed but assimilated, so that it becomes part and parcel of the molecular structure of the living body into which it enters. And, so far from the fully developed organism being simply the germ _plus_ the nutriment which it has absorbed, it is probable that the adult contains neither in form, nor in substance, more than an inappreciable fraction of the constituents of the germ, and that it is almost, if not wholly, made up of assimilated and metamorphosed nutriment. In the great majority of cases, at any rate, the full-grown organism becomes what it is by the absorption of not-living matter, and its conversion into living matter of a specific type. As Harvey says (Ex. 45), all parts of the body are nourished "ab eodem succo alibili, aliter aliterque cambiato," "ut plantæ omnes ex eodem communi nutrimento (sive rore seu terræ humore)." In all animals and plants above the lowest the germ is a nucleated cell, using that term in its broadest sense; and the first step in the process of the evolution of the individual is the division of this cell into two or more portions. The process of division is repeated, until the organism, from being unicellular, becomes multicellular. The single cell becomes a cell-aggregate; and it is to the growth and metamorphosis of the cells of the cell-aggregate thus produced, that all the organs and tissues of the adult owe their origin.