All Protoplasm Composed of Pangens 195 



Therefore, a transmission of the hereditary characters 

 from the nucleus to the cytoplasm^ must in some way 

 take place here, and the observations communicated in 

 the previous Section furnish important arguments for 

 the correctness of this deduction. 



These are the conclusions that, to my mind, are fully 

 justified by the facts at hand. The assumption of pan- 

 gens is a hypothesis that seems to me indispensable at our 

 present state of knowledge. To my mind it is absolutely 

 necessary for the explanation of the allied relations of 

 organisms, provided that this explanation is attempted 

 on a material basis. 



I shall leave now these general considerations, and 

 attempt to describe how I picture to myself the relation 

 of the pangens to the phenomena of cell-life. I am per- 

 fectly aware of the fact that the working out of a 

 hypothesis to its extreme consequences leads only too 

 easily to erroneous conclusions, and is of value for science 

 only when leading to definite problems that can be solved 

 experimentally. I shall therefore limit myself to only 

 one hypothesis, which, it seems to me, recommends it- 

 self by its simplicity. This hypothesis, with the deduc- 

 tions resulting directly from it, will form the subject 

 of this last section. 



The hypothesis reads as follows: All living proto- 

 plasm consists of pangens; they form the only living 

 elements in it. 



% 2. All Protoplasm Composed of Pangens 



From Hertwig's renowned discovery, some investi- 

 gators have inferred that only the nucleus is the bearer 

 of hereditary characters ; that they are entirely restricted 



^By cytoplasm I mean all the protoplasm except the nucleus. 



