x TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION 



divide repeatedly, but always by doubling division. 

 It therefore remains unaltered germplasm, and 

 eventually is marshalled to the part of the adult 

 from which new organisms are to arise, becoming, 

 for instance, in the case of a woman, the nuclear 

 matter of the ovary. Thus, the germplasm is 

 handed on continuously from generation to genera- 

 tion, forming an unbroken chain, through each 

 individual, from grandparent to grandchild. This 

 is the immortality of the germ-cells, the part of the 

 theory which has laid so strong a hold on the 

 popular imagination. And with this also is con- 

 nected the equally celebrated denial of the inherit- 

 ance of acquired characters. For, at first, it seemed 

 a clear inference that, if the hereditary mass for the 

 daughters were separated off from the hereditary 

 mass that was to form the mother, at the very first, 

 before the body of the mother was formed, the 

 daughters were in all essentials the sisters of their 

 mother, and could take from her nothing of any 

 characters that might be impressed upon her body 

 in subsequent development. As this treatise 

 touches only indirectly upon the question of 

 acquired characters, it is necessary only to mention 

 that while his early sharp denial of the possibility 

 of inheritance of acquired characters has led to a 

 damaging criticism of supposed cases, Weismann, 

 in the riper development of his theory, has found a 

 possibility for the partial transference of influences 

 that affect the mother to the germplasm contained 

 within her. 



It is with the fate of the other portion coming 



