INHERITANCE 233 



is the importance of an arranging and ruling factor in spite 

 of all units. The organism is always one whole whether the 

 paternal properties prevail or the more complicated maternal 

 ones; in other words, all so-called properties that consist in the 

 spatial relations of parts have nothing to do with " units " or 

 " allelomorphs," which indeed cannot be more than necessary 

 means or materials, requiring to be ordered. As to the 

 character of the morphogenetic single and separate units 

 themselves Herbst is inclined to regard them as specific 

 chemical substances which unite correspondingly during 

 nuclear conjugation, forming a sort of loose chemical 

 compound. It would depend on the constitution of this 

 compound whether germ-cells of hybrids could become 

 pure or not. 



THE HOLE OF THE NUCLEUS IN INHERITANCE 



At the end of our studies on heredity we hardly can 

 avoid saying a few words about the problem of the localisa- 

 tion of the morphogenetic units in the germ-cells themselves. 

 Is it in the protoplasm or in the nucleus that they are 

 placed ? You all know that this question was for a long- 

 time regarded as more important than any other, and 

 perhaps you have already blamed me for not raising it 

 until now. But in my opinion results gained by the 

 purely analytical method and carefully established, are 

 always superior to those which are of a merely descriptive 

 nature and doubtful besides. The famous problem of 

 the part played by the nucleus in inheritance is both 

 descriptive and doubtful : it is only, so to say, of factual, / 

 not of analytical importance, and quite insoluble at present. 



