INADEQUACY OP NATURAL SELECTION, ETC. 623 



developpement du gcnne, que les corpusculcs, une fois apparus dans 1'oeuf, 

 augmentent graducllement en nombre, a mesure que 1'embryon se developpe ; 

 que, dans les derniers jours de 1'incubation, 1'oeuf en est plein, au point de 

 faire croire que la majcure partie des granules du jaune se sont transformed 

 en corpusculcs. 



" Une autre observation importante cst que 1'embryon aussi est souille de 

 corpuscules, et ;\ un degre tel qu'on peut soupconner que 1'infection du jaune 

 tire son origine du germe lui-meme ; en d'autres termes que le germe est pi i- 

 mordialement infecte, et porte en lui-meme ces corpuscules tout comme les 

 vcrs adultes, frappes du memo mal." * 



Thus, then the substance of the egg and even its innermost 

 vital part, is permeable by a parasite sufficiently large to be 

 microscopically visible. It is also of course permeable by the 

 invisible molecules of protein, out of which its living tissues are 

 formed, and by absorption of which they subsequently grow. 

 But, according to Weismann, it is not permeable by those 

 invisible units of protoplasm out of which the vitally active 

 tissues of the parent are constituted : units composed, as we must 

 assume, of variously arranged molecules of protein. So that the 

 big thing may pass, and the little thing may pass, but the inter- 

 mediate thing may not pass ! 



A fact of kindred nature, unhappily more familiar, may be 

 next brought in evidence. It concerns the transmission of a 

 disease not infrequent among those of unregulated lives. The 

 highest authority concerning this disease, in its inherited form, 

 is Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson ; and the following are extracts 

 from a letter I have received from him, and which I publish with 

 his assent : 



" I do not think that there can be any reasonable doubt that a very large 

 majority of those who suffer from inherited syphilis take the taint from the 

 male parent. ... It is the rule when a man marries who has no 

 remaining local lesion, but in whom the taint is not eradicated, for his wife 

 to remain apparently well, whilst her child may suffer. No doubt the child 

 infects its mother's blood, but this does not usually evoke any obvious 

 symptoms of syphilis. ... I am sure I have seen hundreds of syphilitic 

 infants whose mothers had not, so far as I could ascertain, ever displayed a 

 single symptom." 



See, then, to what we are committed if we accept Weismann's 

 hypothesis. We must conclude, that whereas the reproductive 

 cell may be effectually invaded by an abnormal living element 

 in the parental organism, those normal living elements which 

 ' constitute the vital protoplasm of the parental organism, cannot 

 invade it. Or if it be admitted that both intrude, then the 

 implication is that, whereas the abnormal element can so modify 

 the development as to cause changes of structure (as of the teeth), 

 the normal element can cause no changes of structure ! f 



* Les Maladies des Vcrs d soic, par L. Pasteur, Vol. I, p. 39. 



f Curiously enough, Weismann refers to, and recognizes, syphilitic infec- 



