vm DARWINISM AND HOLISM 199 



tinuous stream from one generation to the next. From these 

 racial germ-cells are differentiated the body-cells in the 

 individual life, both in its ante-natal and post-natal stages. 

 After the differentiation has taken place in the fructified 

 ovum, there is, according to him, practically no connection 

 between the germ-cells and the resulting body-cells which 

 build up the individual, except in so far as the former are 

 nourished through the latter. The individual becomes 

 separated from the race factor, and becomes an inde- 

 pendent growth from it, becomes, so to say, an excrescence 

 or epiphyte on the race, which continues in the germ.-cells 

 uninfluenced by the fate or the development of the indi- 

 vidual. This complete severance and independence of the 

 individual from the germinal constitution from which it 

 has sprung is a distinctive tenet of Weismannism. It em- 

 bodies a profound truth, which we recognise in the free- 

 dom and independence of individuality. But at the same 

 time it makes the severance of the racial and individual 

 elements in the whole too great, and it ignores important 

 reciprocal influences between them which maintain a cer- 

 tain balance between individual and racial development. To 

 these points we shall have occasion to return. Here it is 

 instructive to note that for Weismann the sharp distinction 

 between the individual and the germ-cells, from which it 

 sprang and which it carries forward for the race, was based 

 on his view of the nature and constitution of these germ- 

 cells. These cells contained the hereditary constitution of 

 the race or species, and in so far registered the past, and 

 made the past an operative factor in the present. They 

 also embodied the mechanism of variation and thus linked 

 the future with the past in the continuity of the race. In 

 a way, therefore, the germ-cells, uninfluenced by the 

 ephemeral and accidental influences of the individual life, 

 contained in their wonderful constitution not only the pres- 

 ent but also the past and in a measure the future of the race. 

 They were eternal, self-contained units, carrying their future 

 and their past in themselves, uninfluenced by the accidents 

 of their environment. The individual was a mere bit of 



