THEORY Of DETERMINANTS 43* 



plete set of hereditary qualities, as containing implicitly all the 

 parts of a perfect animal, as the units in that multiplicate mosaic 

 which makes up an inheritance. 



There is more than a superficial resemblance between this 

 doctrine and the Buddhistic theory of Karma. As Huxley said, 

 " the tendency of a germ to develop according to a certain 

 specific type is its Karma. It is the * last inheritor and the last 

 result ' of all the conditions that have affected a line of ancestry 

 which goes back for millions of years to the time when life first 

 appeared on the earth. The germ-plasm is the last link in a 

 once continuous chain extending from the primitive living sub- 

 stance ; and the characters of the successive species to which it 

 has given rise are the manifestations of its gradually modified 

 Karma." (See Evolution and Ethics.) 



Determinants. " I assume," Weismann says, " that the germ- 

 plasm consists of a large number of different living parts, each 

 of which stands in a definite relation to particular cells or 

 kinds of cells in the organism to be developed that is, they are 

 ' primary constituents ' in the sense that their co-operation in 

 the production of a particular part of the organism is indispens- 

 able, the part being determined both as to its existence and its 

 nature by the predestined particles of the germ-plasm. I there- 

 fore call these last Determinants, and the parts of the complete 

 organism which they determine Determinates" (1904, vol. i. 



P- 355). 



But how many determinants are to be postulated in any given 

 case ? Weismann supposes that every independently variable 

 and independently heritable character is represented in the germ- 

 plasm by a determinant. A lock of white hair among the dark 

 may reappear at the same place for several generations ; it is 

 difficult to interpret such facts of particulate inheritance except 

 on the theory that the germ-plasm is built up of a large number 

 of different determinants. 



It may be pointed out that almost all biologists who have 



