LAMARCK 97 



germ-cells in the bodies of the queen or of the drones, and, therefore, 

 no channel through which such an influence can be propagated. 



I hope to show, in another place, that natural selection meets 

 all the difficulties we find in the hive of bees. If so, it must also 

 be an adequate explanation of the origin of the siphonophore as 

 well; and the hypothesis that the germ-cells are affected by the 

 conditions of the life of the sterile members of the community is 

 as superfluous in the latter case as it is inadmissible in the case of 

 the bee. 



While the siphonophore has, on the one hand, many features of 

 resemblance to a hive of bees, it also, on the other hand, resembles 

 the body of an ordinary animal, for this is, also, both an unit and 

 a community. The cells which compose it have a certain individ- 

 uality, and are specialized for different functions, as are the bees 

 and the members of the hydroid community. Certain cells are set 

 apart, very early in the history of the whole, in mammals long 

 before birth, as germ-cells, destined to become, in time, the ova or 

 the spermatoa of the adult, while all the other specialized cells are 

 out of the line of descent to future generations, like the worker- 

 bee. The constituent cells of the body are much more intimately 

 bound together, and are much more dependent for their welfare 

 upon the integrity of the whole, than the bees in the hive, or the 

 members of the siphonophore, and we cannot prove that they are not 

 all in some sort of telegraphic or sympathetic connection with the 

 germ-cells; in fact, there are reasons for believing that a connection 

 of this sort does actually exist; but it is no more necessary to call 

 in its aid to account for the origin of a cellular community, like the 

 body of a dog, than it is to imagine anything of this sort to account 

 for the origin of the worker-bees; and, in this case, the facts must 

 be accounted for without this hypothesis or not at all. 



Even if it should be proved, as seems not improbable, that the 

 germ-cells are in some sort of responsive connection with all the 

 other elements of the body, it would still remain true that the adjust- 

 ments which we find in living things are of such a character as 

 to prove that the " inheritance of acquired characters " has had no 

 controlling influence in their production. 



Some may ask whether it may not be possible that, while natural 

 selection is the chief factor in the origin of species, there may still 



