2 8 The Ohio Naturalist. [Vol. IV, No. 2, 



cells, its acquired characters are inherited; but when we begin to 

 consider that it ma}- be affected in a larger way b}' remoter por- 

 tions of the body, either through pangens or some other means, 

 the question takes another turn. Is it not difficult to imagine 

 how some specific change in a remote portion of the body can be 

 registered on the germ-ccll with the result that the offspring has 

 reproduced in it the same specific modification ? Of course, incon- 

 ceivabilit}' can never be advanced as an argument, pro or con, 

 unless an easier explanation is at hand, and in this case many 

 think there is. 



lyCt us turn now to another phase of the subject. Breeders and 

 fanciers have long insisted that their produce show case after case 

 of the inheritance of acquired modifications. Nay, indeed are not 

 our social institutions themselves built on this assumption? Edu- 

 cate the father and the child will profit thereby. Raise the man 

 of the slums and thereby better his offspring. What teacher that 

 will not on first thouglit answer that the child of an educated 

 parent learns more easily than that of an ignorant and illiterate 

 father? And so we may read in the stock journals and the fanciers 

 journals of the transmission of acquired traits and an outbreak of 

 discussion is probable at an}- time. Of discussions on this topic 

 the most noteworthy is the Spencer-Weismann controversy that 

 was carried on in the pages of the Contemporary Rcvieic in 1893. 

 The discussion arose from an article by Herbert vSpencer entitled 

 "The Inadequac}' of Natural Selection." In it he attempted to 

 show that coadaptation of the various parts of the body of an 

 organism could be explained far easier by admitting the transmis- 

 sion of functional changes than b}' the theory of Natural Selec- 

 tion. From the law of probability he attempted to show that the 

 chance of two characters that were mutually adapted arising in 

 the same individual was almost infinite. As a concrete example he 

 took the case of the stag wiih its antlers weighing pounds. Now 

 in an adult stag we find the most beautiful coadaptation of parts 

 to parts. The shoulder mu.scles are immense, the front legs are 

 much stronger than the hinder pair, there is an increased blood 

 supply to these i)arts, etc. How, he asks, can we assume that all 

 these adaptations arose simultaneously in the same individual as 

 variations, so tliat from the other less favorable conditions these 

 were selected by natural .selection? How nuich easier, he says, 

 is the transmission hypothesis to be applied here! 



In answering this-and admitting the force of the argument, 

 Weismann submits that if one case cotild beshcnvn whereby there 

 is no po.ssibilit>- of the transmission of acquired characters the 

 burden of proof would fall to the transmissionists. As such a 

 case he brings forward that of the worker bcc-. It is well known 

 that the worker bee as well as the soldier termite produce no off- 

 spring, as in their development the organs of generation atrophy. 



