PANGENESIS IMPROBABLE. 139 



relationship of offspring to parent is one of direct 

 descent is, as Galton tells us, " wholly untenable " ; 

 and the only reason he admits some supple- 

 mentary traces of pangenesis into his " Theory of 

 Heredity, " l is that he may thus account for the 

 more or less questionable cases of the trans- 

 mission of acquired characters. But there appears 

 to be no necessity even for this concession. We 

 ought therefore to dispense with the useless and 

 gratuitous hypothesis that cells multiply by 

 throwing off minute self-multiplying gemmules, as 

 well as by the well-known method of self-division. 

 If pangenesis occurs, the transmission of ac- 

 quired characters ought to be a prominent fact. 

 The size, strength, health and other good or evil 

 qualities of the cells could hardly fail to exercise 

 a marked and corresponding effect upon the size 

 and quality of the reproductive gemmules thrown 

 off by those cells. The direct evidence tends to 



1 Contemporary Review, Dec. 1875, pp. 94, 95. 



