88 CREATIVE EVOLUTION CHAP. 



from that in which the corresponding part was altered 

 in the generating organism. 



We should propose, then, to introduce a distinction 

 between the hereditability of deviation and that of char 

 acter. An individual which acquires a new character 

 thereby deviates from the form it previously had, which 

 form the germs, or oftener the half-germs, it contains 

 would have reproduced in their development. If this 

 modification does not involve the production of sub 

 stances capable of changing the germ -plasm, or does not 

 so affect nutrition as to deprive the germ-plasm of certain 

 of its elements, it will have no effect on the offspring 

 of the individual. This is probably the case as a rule. 

 If, on the contrary, it has some effect, this is likely to 

 be due to a chemical change which it has induced in 

 the germ-plasm. This chemical change might, by ex 

 ception, bring about the original modification again in the 

 organism which the germ is about to develop, but there 

 are as many and more chances that it will do something 

 else. In this latter case, the generated organism will 

 perhaps deviate from the normal type as much as the 

 generating organism, but it will do so differently. It 

 will have inherited deviation and not character. In 

 general, therefore, the habits formed by an individual 

 have probably no echo in its offspring ; and when 

 they have, the modification in the descendants may have 

 no visible likeness to the original one. Such, at least, 

 is the hypothesis which seems to us most likely. In 

 any case, in default of proof to the contrary, and so 

 long as the decisive experiments called for by an 

 eminent biologist 1 have not been made, we must keep 

 to the actual results of observation. Now, even if we 

 take the most favourable view of the theory of the trans- 



1 Giard, Contravenes transformistes, Paris, 1904, p. 147 



