CHAPTEK VII 



REVIEW OF CERTAIN CONCLUSIONS 



But if we accept these views regarding the existence of biophoric 

 molecules and the essential nature of growth as involving a 

 multiplication of the same by a process akin to crystallization, 

 we are inevitably led to certain very interesting conclusions, 

 which may here be rapidly passed in review. Each, it is true, 

 might well be expanded into a chapter, but the limitations set 

 by this course of lectures demands that I do little beyond indicat- 

 ing the headings. 



(i.) The Continuity of the Germ Plasm. — Weismann conceives 

 his biophores and determinants as handed down direct from 

 parent to offspring, so that the germ plasm is potentially eternal, 

 and that of a thousand generations back is contained in the 

 germ cells of the generation of to-day and has its influence upon 

 the configuration of the body of the individual derived from 

 those germ cells. This he speaks of as the " continuity of the 

 germ plasm." 



But, obviously, this is not a continuity of substance, as Weis- 

 mann implies, but merely a potential continuity of molecular 

 arrangement and constitution. For growth and multiplication 

 of the living molecules, for one conjugated ovum and spermato- 

 zoon to give rise to the countless millions of sperm cells of the 

 male of any of the higher animals, 1 there must be such active 

 reproduction of the parental biophores that the chance of one 

 of the original biophores of a grandparent finding itself in the 

 nucleus of a sperm cell must be infinitesimal. The likelihood 

 is that while such, it is true, control the constitution of the new 



1 According to Loeb, the average seminal ejaculation in man contains 

 226,000,000 sperm cells. Consult further Marshall, Physiology of Repro- 

 duction. 



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