WEISMANN 'S THEORY OF THE GEEMPLASM 79 



In spite of this purely arbitrary, complementary 

 hypothesis, the facts seem to me to show that 

 Weismann assumed an untenable position when he 

 attributed a reserve army of ' stable plasma ' only 

 to the sets of cells in which it was necessary to 

 suppose its existence. The experiments of Driesch, 

 Wilson, and myself show that a complete embryo 

 may spring from a half or quarter of the egg, and 

 that the set of nuclei first to arise may be shifted 

 about in the egg like a heap of billiard-balls. In 

 the face of such facts there seems nothing left for 

 the theory of Weismann but to endow every cell 

 with accessory germplasro. to prepare it for un- 

 foreseen events. This, however, would sterilize the 

 other part of the theory, the doctrine of deter- 

 minants, and the mechanism of development de- 

 pendent on a rigid architecture of the germplasm. 

 Consider the confusion that would arise when the 

 deploying of the active army was disarranged by 

 external influences, now in one fashion, now in 

 another, if the reserve army, with its store of latent 

 rudiments, had to come to the help of the broken 

 pieces. What would compel the rudiments dis- 

 posed to activity according to the prearranged 

 plan to become latent where they were no longer 

 wanted ? And what would stir into activity in the 

 necessary places the originally quiescent rudiments 

 of the reserve army? In fact, if the roles of activity 

 and quiescence are even once to be exchanged by 

 the rudiments in the cell, what object is there in 

 drawing a distinction so sharp between the two 

 armies the active army which carries out the 



