412 HISTORY OF THEORIES 



portion, out of which the individual is built up, and a phylo- 

 genetic portion which is reserved to form the reproductive 

 material of the mature offspring. This reservation of the 

 phylogenetic material I described as the continuity of the germ 

 protoplasm. . . . Encapsuled in the ontogenetic material, the 

 phylogenetic protoplasm is sheltered from external influences, 

 and retains its specific and embryonic characters." 



Brooks. — Brooks notes that, in papers published in 1876 

 and 1877, he had also suggested the notion of germinal continuity, 

 and the conception is clearly expressed in his work already 

 quoted : " The ovum gives rise to the divergent cells of the 

 organism, but also to cells like itself. The ovarian ova of the 

 offspring are these latter cells, or their direct unmodified de- 

 scendants. The ovarian ova of the offspring share by direct 

 inheritance all the properties of the fertilised ovum." 



Galton. — The important theory of Galton now requires 

 notice. Two preliminary notes are requisite. Galton was 

 extremely doubtful in regard to the genuine inheritance of 

 acquired characters. It was to account for the possible faint 

 inheritance of some of these that he still admitted, as a subsidiary 

 hypothesis, a limited amount of pangenesis. In the second 

 place, it is needful to notice at the outset Galton's term " stirp," 

 which he uses to express the sum- total of the germs, gemmules, 

 or organic units of some kind, which are to be found in the 

 newly fertilised ovum. 



(i) Only some of the germs within the stirp attain develop- 

 ment in the cells of the " body." It is the dominant 

 germs which so develop. 



(2) The residual germs and their progeny form the sexual 



elements or buds. The part of the stirp developed into 

 the " body " is almost sterile. The continuity is kept 

 up by the undeveloped residual portion. 



(3) The direct descent is not between body and body, but 



between stirp and stirp. " The stirp of the child may 



