IV 



HEREDITY OF ACQUIRED CHARACTERS, A FUNDAMENTAL 

 PRINCIPLE OF EVOLUTION 



As the raison d'etre of this book is the refutation of the basis 

 of MateriaUstic Monism, this chapter must be considered as 

 subsidiary to Evolution by Adaptation. 



Darwin saw clearly that Evolution could not go on unless 

 acquired characters were hereditary. But Weismann steps in 

 with his theory of germ-plasm and limits heredity to its agency, 

 denying that the soma can acquire characters which can be 

 communicated to the germ-plasm, as being too deep-seated, and 

 so become hereditary. 



My object, therefore, is limited to proving that the soma 

 does acquire characters, and that too in plants long before there 

 are any reproductive organs present. These latter, however, 

 viz., the flowers and fruits, do reproduce the characters, when 

 their seeds grow up, which were acquired by the vegetative 

 organs of the parents. 



In the third page of The Origm of Species, Darwin 

 speaks of " the strong principle of inheritance so that any 

 selected variation will tend to propagate its new and modified 

 form ". 



This " tendency to heredity " was fully corroborated by M. 

 E. A. Carrifere so long ago as 1865, in his work, Production et 

 Fixation des Varietes dans les Vegetaux, in which he says : 

 " Faisons aussi remarquer que les diverse combinaisons faits 

 pour en obtenir de nouvelles, reposent sur cette loi generale que, 

 dans la nature tout tend a se reproduire et meme a s'etendre, 



(183) 



