Characters, Hereditary and Acquired. 137 



however, is by no means the case; and the mis- 

 understanding can only be accounted for by sup- 

 posing that the strongly partisan spirit which these 

 critics display on the side of neo-Darwinism has 

 rendered them incapable of appreciating any attempt 

 at impartial or even so much as independent 

 criticism. At all events, it is a matter of fact that 

 throughout the work in question I have been par- 

 ticularly careful to avoid this misunderstanding as to 

 my own position. Over and over again it is there 

 stated that, far from having any objection to the 

 principle of " Continuity " as represented in the base- 

 line of the above diagram, I have been convinced 

 of its truth ever since reading Mr. Galton's Theory 

 of Heredity in 1875. All the "hard words" which 

 I have written against Weismann's system of theories 

 have reference to those parts of it which go to con- 

 stitute the Y-like structure of the diagram. 



It is, however, desirable to recur to another point, 

 and one which I hope will be borne in mind through- 

 out the following discussion. It has already been 

 stated, a few pages back, that the doctrine of con- 

 tinuity admits of being held in two very different 

 significations. It may be held as absolute, or as 

 relative. In the former case we have the Weis- 

 mannian doctrine of germ-plasm : the substance of 

 heredity is taken to be a substance per se, which 

 has always occupied a separate " sphere " of its own, 

 without any contact with that of somatoplasm further 

 than is required for its lodgement and nutrition; 

 hence it can never have been in any degree modi- 

 fied as to its hereditary qualities by use-inheritance 

 or any other kind of somatogenetic change ; it has 



