CHAP, xvm A "FAIRY TALE OF SCIENCE " f 235 



back to differences and irregularities in nutrition. At 

 the same time, by a curious codicil, Weismann insists 

 that these differences could never become effective unless 

 when they were cumulated by amphimixis. According 

 to Komanes, this is simply a piece of obstinacy designed 

 to show that, if Weismann was certainly half in the 

 wrong, yet he may have been half in the right. Romanes 

 therefore thinks it is to be dismissed as an unproved 

 and improbable assumption. The third point also falls 

 to the ground. The germ plasm of one of the higher 

 plants or animals or men is not simply a one-celled 

 creature rearranged ; it is such a creature, if you like, 

 but modified as well as rearranged 7- modified to a 

 certain extent all along the course of its " phylogeny," 

 wherever variation occurred. 



Modified how far ? That is for us a very important 

 question. Do Weismann's newer views admit of use- 

 inheritance in the literal sense ? Or do they only admit 

 of certain changes in the germ plasm, sympathetic to 

 vital changes in the parental organism, but not neces- 

 sarily initiating the same changes in the offspring ? In 

 Komanes' language, does Weismann now accept repre- 

 sentative congenital changes ( = true use-inheritance), or 

 only the lower class or classes, nutritive changes 

 ( = Weismann's new theory of the origin of variation), 

 or nutritive and specialised ? l This is a question of 

 importance for us as students of human progress. True 

 use-inheritance, if it occurs, constitutes a possibility of 

 rapid advance in contrast to the painfully circuitous 

 method of natural selection. So far as I am aware, 

 Weismann has not spoken on this point. Reluctantly, 

 and as it were casually, he has cancelled the central 



1 Komanes gives as an example of the last : " The fathers have eaten 

 sour grapes, and the children " were born with wry -necks ! 



