ovism

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The doctrine that the egg contains all the organs of the future animal. See incasement.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun (Zoöl.) The old theory that the egg contains the whole embryo of the future organism and the germs of all subsequent offsprings and is merely awakened to activity by the spermatozoön; -- opposed to spermism or animalculism.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun The belief held by ovists.