TRANSMISSION OF CHARACTER 205 



not more numerous in places where they would be 

 most useful (for they should be more numerous on 

 the dorsal surface, where they could warn the indi- 

 vidual of danger, than on the abdominal surface) but 

 in places where the body comes most frequently in con- 

 tact with external objects. Every one knows to what 

 extent the sense of touch becomes developed in the 

 blind or in compositors, etc. The degeneration of the 

 little toe in man is an acquired character which has 

 become hereditary. It is due to bipedal walking 

 which, in order to balance the body, develops almost 

 exclusively the inner side of the foot. 



Weismann's answer to the foregoing is to the effect 

 that, while the discriminativeness of the tongue is of 

 little use to modern man, it may have been very useful 

 to his ancestors and, therefore, has been affected by 

 natural selection. Spencer answered that this was a 

 case in which panmixia, otherwise so active, should 

 have intervened and allowed this discriminativeness to. 

 dwindle away. As far as the degeneration of the lit- 

 tle toe is concerned, Weismann opposes to Spencer's 

 hypothesis another hypothesis: this degeneration is 

 an innate, not an acquired variation. 



The reaction of organisms against their environ- 

 ment is, according to Weismann, predetermined long 

 in advance, for in the struggle between determinants, 

 germinal selection allows those determinants to survive 

 which present the greatest sensitiveness to their spe- 





