THE EVOLUTION OF LIVING BEINGS. 63 



Whether the character-complex of a homozygous in- 

 dividual is disintegrated, at the moment of the forma- 

 tion of the gametes, and subsequently rebuilt when two 

 of these gametes fuse, so as to form a zygote, or whe- 

 ther it is never desintegrated at all, and consequently 

 really inherited, we know not. 



This of course is of importance in connection with 

 the possibility of the inheritance of engrams in the 

 sense of SEMON, because such a thing would be at least 

 conceivable if the charactercomplex were inherited as 

 an entity, but becomes almost inconceivable if, during 

 the process of formation of the gametes and during their 

 subsequent fusion, the engram would first have to be 

 disintegrated and later have to be rebuilt. 



We know, unfortunately, absolutely nothing of the 

 way in which a homozygous organism transmits its 

 characters to its offspring, and consequently we know 

 absolutely nothing of heredity. 



If we define heredity as the transmittal of the cha- 

 ractercomplex of a homozygous individual as an entity 

 to its offspring, we do not even know whether heredity 

 exists or not. 



We are thus not even in a position to say, whether a 

 homozygous individual is an entity or a complex of 

 more or less independant units ; it might very well, for 

 all we know, be the necessary product of a germplas- 

 ma consisting of a definite chemical substance f . i. of a 

 definite albuminous body, in a similar way, as so many 

 cristals are the necessary shape-products of definite 

 pure chemical substances. 



The specific shape might therefore be the expression 



