n.] ACQUIRING MODIFICATIONS 13 



To apply this statement to plants, Mr Reid's 

 words would have to be altered somewhat as 

 follows : 



" The power of acquiring a modification under 

 similar circumstances is a general one, belong- 

 ing to living protoplasm and its nucleus, so 

 that plants of no affinity can, and do, acquire 

 precisely similar modifications of structure in 

 different continents, as the Cactacece in Mexico, 

 and species of Euphorbia in Africa." 



But the words, " That which is transmitted 

 to the infant is not the modification," would 

 have to be changed to : 



What is transmitted is the power, not only 

 of acquiring the modification anew under similar 

 circumstances, but of actually reproducing them 

 without the latter, and in a totally dissimilar 

 environment, provided the conditions of life 

 which first induced them to arise, have continued 

 for a sufficiently long series of generations, till 

 fixity has been secured. Thus, the dissected 

 foliage of certain submerged plants is repro- 

 duced when the seed is sown on land, and that 

 peculiar form of leaf it will be shown was 

 purely an "acquired character" by response to 

 the water. 



But even supposing that Mr Reid was right, 

 it is beside the really important question, as to 

 how came the rudiments (say, of the bones and 

 muscles which require to be exercised for their 



