EFFECT OF ENVIRONMENT 135 



climate. Other stimuli may take away from the inborn 

 characters. Apart from the mutilations due to accident 

 or design, the development of the organism may be inter- 

 fered with in some way. Many deformities are due to this 

 cause. The case of a child born with several fingers missing, 

 may be just as much the result of an accident as the case 

 of a man having several fingers crushed in a machine. 

 These are all acquired characters. 



The environment, then, is certainly the direct cause of 

 acquired characters in the individual. How is it possible 

 for the environment to cause inborn variations, that is, 

 changes in the germ cells ? In only one way through 

 the parent. The changes produced in the parent by the 

 environment must react upon the germ cells and produce 

 modifications in them. Unless this occurs, the environ- 

 ment can have nothing to do with the production of inborn 

 variations. It is quite evident that the germ cells are de- 

 pendent upon the organism in which they exist for suste- 

 nance, so that if the organism dies the germ cells contained 

 in it will also die very shortly, but beyond this it would 

 appear that the production of changes in the germ cells 

 through changes in the organism containing them involves 

 the transmission of modifications in the parent to the off- 

 spring. We are thus brought to the consideration of a 

 controversial question ; for if inborn variations are due to 

 the action of the environment upon the parents, then acquired 

 characters are transmitted to the offspring. Moreover, they 

 are transmitted, not as acquired characters, but as inborn 

 characters. The acquired characters of the parent must, in 

 fact, be transmuted into inborn characters in the offspring. 



There are cases of chronic alcoholism where the effect 

 of partial poisoning may be produced on the germ cells 

 through the parent. Here, however, if any effect from the 

 poisoning is produced in the offspring, it does not involve 

 the transmission of special modifications produced in the 

 parents, but it is due to the direct action of the poison upon 

 the germ cells themselves. We must seek for evidence of 



