222 COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART iv 



farther refinements and subdivisions. If we may take 

 an ecclesiastical analogy, the ordinary doctrine of organic 

 reciprocity corresponds to the Protestant doctrine of the 

 Church. The ministry are specialised organs of the 

 Church, kindred to all other parts of the living Church 

 tissue, capable, if the need arises, of being replaced by 

 any other part without serious damage to the true life 

 of the Church. On the other hand, " continuity of the 

 germ plasm " corresponds to the High Church doctrine 

 of apostolical succession. Age after age the Church is 

 made or created by the hierarchy, but the hierarchy is 

 never made by the Church ; it is made by the ante- 

 cedent hierarchy. There is no reciprocity, there is no 

 fellow-ship, but aristocratic superiority on the one side, 

 and absolute dependence on the other. If the hierarchy 

 perishes, or is interrupted, everything is lost. A strange 

 belief surely ! Yet who knows ? If certain views are 

 biologically correct, the High Church school of Christians 

 may claim to be more scientific than any others. But 

 are these views proved, or even permissible ? 



In their full (and quasi-High Church) severity, 

 these views are to be found only in Weismann's earlier 

 writings, where he develops his more characteristic posi- 

 tions. "Stirp" always differed from "Germ plasm"; 

 for Galton always admitted a certain modified action of 

 "use-inheritance" or "the Lamarckian factor." And, 

 along with other changes registered by Romanes in 

 1893, "Weismann had by that time withdrawn his former 

 doctrine of the "absolute stability" so Romanes puts 

 it " of the germ plasm," and had come over to Galton's 

 view, according to which the influence of environment 

 in originating variations, and so contributing directly to 

 evolutionary progress, while slight, is yet not to be 

 denied. However, the earlier form of Weismann's views 



