4 1 8 Eimer on Growth and Inheritance 



rejoice to say, without the fantastic extravagances which are 

 now to be found at Tubingen or Jena, as others were at 

 Gottingen in the days of our fathers. 



We are singularly fortunate in that we have now pro- 

 vided for us the best means of estimating the arguments of 

 the great champions of the two contending schools. These 

 are Professor Eimer and Professor Weismann, who, in our 

 judgment, in spite of the great ability of each, outrage 

 common-sense in opposite directions, so that a gain to the 

 cause of truth may reasonably be anticipated from the 

 vigorous conflict they have entered upon. 



Opportunity of assisting at this combat has just been 

 afforded us by the work referred to at the head of this 

 review. The excellent translation of Professor Eimer's 

 speculations, for Avhich we are indebted to Mr. Cunningham, 

 follows very appropriately on the translation of Professor 

 Weismann's Essays which was published the year before by 

 the Clarendon Press. 



No one now holds a more conspicuous position in the 

 world of biological science than does Professor Weismann of 

 Freiburg, who has startled the world by some very strange 

 doctrines. Thus he teaches us that there is really no such 

 thing as a distinction of sex ; such seeming difference as we 

 do find having been developed in order to introduce a little 

 pleasing variety into a too monotonous world. He also tells 

 us that no animal, whether a hyena or a tapeworm, lives for 

 itself, but for the benefit of posterity, each creature only 

 •dying in order to benefit its race ; so that every organism, 

 from a wheel-animalcule to a whale, is, unknowingly, a sort 

 of zoological Marcus Curtius. 



But this state of things is, according to him, a modern 

 improvement, seeing that the first organisms were all 

 potentially immortal. They were creatures which each con- 

 sisted of only one cell, that multiplied by dividing into two 



