408 GEORGE T. HARGITT 
in the reticulum, and the latter is retained while the other goes in- 
to the body of the egg. But the chromatin of the assumed two 
sorts came from the same original source, the chromatin loops of 
the conjugation phase (synapsis) of the primitive egg cell. Is it 
sufficient to say that, since there was a different ending, there 
must have been a different source? To claim this would be assump- 
tion, not observation, for there is no way of demonstrating a 
difference in the chromatin of the reticulum and of the nucleolus. 
But let us grant for the sake of argument that this reticulum 
retained in the germinal vesicle is the essential chromatin. We 
have the chromatin scattered over a very fine-meshed, extensive 
reticulum in the minutest grains. There is no difference in any 
part of the network so far as can be discovered by differential 
staining or by the use of apochromatic lenses. Later there appear 
larger masses of chromatin at the nodes of the network, or the 
whole reticulum appears to condense into larger masses of chro- 
matin. These appear the same everywhere; again no difference 
can be discovered by staining methods or by careful use of apo- 
chromatic lenses. But some of these chromatin masses enter into 
the chromosomes of the maturation spindle and some escape 
into the cytoplasm in the form of grains when the membrane 
breaks, not having been used to help form the chromosomes. 
Here the claim will again be made that the chromatin which es- 
capes is of a different sort from that which goes into the chromo- 
somes. But once more, the claim has no basis at all in observa- 
tion; it is simply a position assumed by the necessity of making 
the facts agree with the theory which is held to apply in this case. 
My position is that we can depend on facts more than on inter- 
pretation of those facts, particularly in our attempted generaliza- 
tions of interpretations. So, in the absence of any evidence 
whatever that the chromatin in the nucleolus is different from that 
in the reticulum of the germinal vesicle, that the chromatin of the 
reticulum which forms chromosomes is different from that which 
remains unused, it must be granted that we are forced to the con- 
clusion that all the chromatin is of the same sort, and not that a 
portion is fore-doomed to be cast into the cytoplasm and another 
part destined to form the chromosomes. This would not, of 
