122 SYMBIOGENESIS 



CHAPTER III. 



GENETICS. 



When we approach the problem of heredity from the experimental 

 side we get very strong evidence of the existence in the germ-plasm of 

 definite material substances associated with the inheritance of special 

 characters. . . . 



From our point of view the interesting thing is the possibility that 

 arises through the sexual progress of the permutation and combination 

 of different factors derived from different lines of descent. . . . 



One species does not arise from another species, but from certain 

 individuals in that species, and when all the individuals become so 

 specialised as to lose their power of adaptation, then changes in the 

 environment may result in the extinction of that line. PROF. A. DENDY. 



Those who would proclaim that whatever is is right will be wise 

 henceforth to base this faith frankly on the impregnable rock of super- 

 stition and to abstain from direct appeals to natural fact. Prof. W. 

 Bateson. 



Dans ses ecrits un sage Italien 



Dit que le mieux est 1'ennemi du bien. 



VOLTAIRE. 



In the preceding pages we have already anticipated that 

 the problem of Heredity is essentially one of values. Expressed 

 in terms of Bio-Dynamics, it was stated that those endowments 

 which a species was capable of transmitting to its progeny as 

 a resultant of its symbiotics and anti-biotics represented its 

 heredity, i.e., that which forms its endowment, but it is 

 always essential to determine whether symbiotics or anti- 

 biotics predominate, so as to arrive at some criterion as to the 

 ultimate effect of such heredity. 



The term " endowment " is widely used in Biology, 

 without care as to the origin of the endowment, by 

 those writers whose theories of evolution lead them to 

 beg the question of such origin and of the positive 



