HEREDITY 211 



advantageous for the preservation of the species, 

 they are transmitted with their qualities ; just as, if 

 they constituted phenomena of disease, they would 

 then represent equally numerous cases of patho- 

 logical heredity. 



" With regard to the manner in which the 

 nervous system assures the transmission of 

 characteristics, we believe that impressions felt 

 and received by the reflex centres of the grey 

 substance of the brain are transmitted by means 

 of the centrifugal nervous cords to the genital 

 centre of the medulla, condensed and concentrated 

 by it, and finally reflected upon the spermatoblasts 

 and ovoblasts by the nerve-fillets, which, starting 

 from this centre, are distributed in the testicles and 



ovaries." 



Let us recall the paragraphs relating to the way 

 in which the great dominating apparatus, as 

 Charrin calls the nervous system, takes part with 

 marvellous minuteness, carrying its action to the 

 cell itself, capable, according to normal or other 

 circumstances, of creating hunger or destroying, 

 that is, maintaining in a normal and healthy state 

 the chemical processes of the cell, or, on the other 

 hand, of throwing them out of gear. When the 

 individual is healthy the germinating cells, male 

 and female, receive the impression, the tone of the 

 nutrition of the organism to which they belong, 



