28 CREATIVE EVOLUTION 



It is well known that, on the theory of the &quot; continuity 

 of the germ -plasm,&quot; maintained by Weismann, the 

 sexual elements of the generating organism pass on 

 their properties directly to the sexual elements of the 

 organism engendered. In this extreme form, the 

 theory has seemed debatable, for it is only in exceptional 

 cases that there are any signs of sexual glands at the 

 time of segmentation of the fertilized egg. But, 

 though the cells that engender the sexual elements do 

 not generally appear at the beginning of the embryonic 

 life, it is none the less true that they are always formed 

 out of those tissues of the embryo which have not 

 undergone any particular functional differentiation, and 

 whose cells are made of unmodified protoplasm. 1 In 

 other words, the genetic power of the fertilized ovum 

 weakens, the more it is spread over the growing mass 

 of the tissues of the embryo ; but, while it is being 

 thus diluted, it is concentrating anew something of 

 itself on a certain special point, to wit, the cells from 

 which the ova or spermatozoa will develop. It might 

 therefore be said that, though the germ-plasm is not 

 continuous, there is at least continuity of genetic 

 energy, this energy being expended only at certain 

 instants, for just enough time to give the requisite 

 impulsion to the embryonic life, and being recouped as 

 soon as possible in new sexual elements, in which, 

 again, it bides its time. Regarded from this point of 

 view, life is like a current passing from germ to germ 

 through the medium of a developed organism. It is as if 

 the organism itself were only an excrescence, a bud 

 caused to sprout by the former germ endeavouring to 

 continue itself in a new germ. The essential thing is 

 the continuous progress indefinitely pursued, an invisible 



1 Roule, V Embryologie generally Paris, 1893, p. 319. 



