D. INHEEITANCE : SECOND PROOF OF THE 

 AUTONOMY OF LIFE 



ALL organisms are endowed with the faculty of re-creating 

 their own initial form of existence. 



In words similar to these Alexander Goette, it seems to 

 me, has given the shortest and the best expression of the 

 fact of inheritance. Indeed, if the initial form in all its 

 essentials is re-created, it follows from the principle of 

 univocality, that, ceteris paribus, it will behave again as 

 it did when last it existed. 



By the fact of inheritance life becomes a rhythmic 

 phenomenon, that is to say, a phenomenon, or better, a chain 

 of phenomena, whose single links reappear at constant 

 intervals, if the outer conditions are not changed. 



THE MATERIAL CONTINUITY IN INHERITANCE 



It was first stated by Gustav Jaeger and afterwards 

 worked out into a regular theory by Weismann, that there 

 is a continuity of material underlying inheritance. Taken 

 in its literal meaning this statement is obviously self- 

 evident, though none the less important on that account. 

 For as all life is manifested on bodies, that is on matter, 

 and as the development of all offspring starts from parts of 

 the parent bodies, that is from the matter or material of the 



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