i88 BREEDING 



how its characters got into the germ was to view the 

 sequence from the wrong end ; the proper starting- 

 point was the germ, and the real question was not 

 " How do the characters of the organism get into 

 the germ-cells which it produces ? " but " How are the 

 characters of an organism represented in the germ 

 cell which "produces it ? " Or, as Samuel Butler has 

 it, the proper statement of the relation between suc- 

 cessive generations is not to say that a hen pro- 

 duces another hen through the medium of an egg ; 

 but to say that a hen is merely an egg's way of pro- 

 ducing another ^gg. According to Weismann, the 

 problem how the characters of the body get into 

 the germ- cells which it encloses is as unreal as the 

 problem which puzzled one of our kings — how does 

 the apple get into the dumpling ? The answer in both 

 cases is the same. The apple does not get into the 

 dumpling. The characters of the parent do not get 

 into the germ-cells which they enclose. The apple 

 and the germ- cells were there first. The germ- cells 

 are merely part of an unbroken line of germ plasm 

 which under certain circumstances, usually the fusion 

 of two of its constituent germ- cells, froths up and 

 produces a great excrescence, the body of the next 

 generation, and continues its existence in this body. 

 The germ plasm, according to this view, is immortal ; 

 the excrescence, the body, is mortal. The germ plasm 

 only comes to an end along a particular line when 

 the body containing it dies without leaving offspring. 

 The animal does not, as it appears to do, give rise to 

 germ-cells when it reaches maturity ; the germ-cells 



