228 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



is to follow ; entelechy determines the egg to be what it is, 

 and the morphogenesis starting from this egg to be what 

 it is also. Entelechy, at present, is not much more for us 

 than a mere word, to signify the autonomous, the irreducible 

 of all that happens in morphogenesis with respect to order, 

 in the one generation and in the next. But may not the 

 material continuity which exists in inheritance account 

 perhaps for the material elements which are to be ordered? 

 In such a way, indeed, I hope we shall be able to reconcile 

 entelechy and the material basis of heredity. May it not 

 be that there exist some " means ' : for morphogenesis, 

 which are handed down from generation to generation, 

 always controlled by entelechy, and which constitute the real 

 significance of the continuity of matter during inheritance ? 



THE EXPERIMENTAL FACTS ABOUT INHERITANCE 



Discoveries of the last few years do seem to show that 

 such means of a material character, though not the founda- 

 tion of that order of processes which is inherited, are 

 nevertheless among the most necessary conditions for the 

 accomplishment of inheritance in general. It is scarcely 

 necessary to remind you that for very many years all 

 concrete research on heredity proper that is, the actual 

 comparison of the various specific characters in the genera- 

 tions of the grandfather, the father, and the child was 

 due to Galton. You may also be aware that in spite of 

 Galton's inestimable services it was not till 1900 that one 

 of the active principles concerned in inheritance was found 

 independently by de Vries, Correns, and Tschermak, and 

 that this principle happened to be one that had been 



