i89^.] Elliot, Inherifaucc of Acquired Characters. 8"? 



would be exhibited by the germ-phism upon the body of tlie 

 incHvidual's oftspring, or must we believe that a modified or 

 changed germ-plasm would produce the same results on succeed- 

 ing generations that it did before it was altered from its original 

 condition, no matter what the causes may have been to effect 

 such modifications ? But if such a modified germ-plasm did pro- 

 duce a modification in the offspring as presented by its parent, 

 would not that be a transmission of acquired characters caused by 

 the environment and not by natural selection? 



If the influences of environment aflect only the cells of the 

 body, and these are unable to affect or modify the reproductive 

 cells, would it not naturally follow that the offspring of an ani- 

 mal that was first changed by its environment, would not resem- 

 ble its changed parent, but on the contrary would be what that 

 parent was before it had acquired any new characters, and then 

 the young would have to undergo in its life similar changes to 

 those the environment had produced in its parent, and this would 

 always be the case throughout all the generations of that species? 

 In the youjig would always be produced the original appearance 

 of the parent, never its alterations. But this, of course, is not 

 so. The young bears a very close resemblance to its parent 

 in the majority of instances, else the continuity of specific forms 

 would be an impossibility. It is difficult to believe that the 

 germ-plasm could be predisposed to all the infinite variations ex- 

 hibited by the body in the many and totally different inffuences 

 of its environment, and that the somatic cells exerted upon it no 

 influence whatever. "If the body of the mvdticellular organism 

 is thus, even according to Weismann's ideas, of secondary 

 importance in comparison with the germ-plasm, if the latter cor- 

 responds to the unicellular organism, it follows that the multi- 

 cellular is just as immortal or mortal as the unicellular. And 

 thus it is impossible to see why, between the germ-plasm of the 

 multicellular on the one hand, and that of the unicellular on the 

 other, there should exist this profound diflerence, that the latter 

 acquires characters during life and transmits them by heredity, 

 the former not, — how the former any more than the latter can 

 nourish itself and grow without being influenced in its nature by 

 its nurture."* 



*Eimer, Organic Evolution, p. 71. 



