Professor Delpino makes a further objection which, however, will only be of weight in the eyes of Vitalists. He says,[226] Pangenesis is not to be received because "it leads directly to the negation of a specific vital principle, co-ordinating and regulating all the movements, acts, and functions of the individuals in which it is incarnated. For Pangenesis of the individual is a term without meaning. If, in contemplating an {216} animal of high organization, we 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, can we explain that a great quantity of dissimilar elements, like the atoms of matter, can unite to form those perfect unities which we call individuals, if we do not suppose the existence of a specific principle, proper to the individual but foreign to the component atoms, which aggregates these said atoms, groups them into molecules, and then moulds the molecules into cells, the cells into tissues, the tissues into organs, and the organs into apparatus?" "But, it may be urged in opposition by the Pangenesists, your vital principle is an unknown and irresolute _x_. This is true; but, on the other hand, let us see whether Pangenesis produces a clearer formula, and one free from unknown elements. The existence of the gemmules is a first unknown element; the propagative affinity of the gemmules is a second; their germinative affinity is a third; their multiplication by fission is a fourth--and what an unknown element!" "Thus, in Pangenesis, everything proceeds by force of unknown elements, and we may ask whether it is more logical to prefer a system which assumes a multitude of unknown elements to a system which assumes only a single one?"