58 VITALISM AND SCHOLASTICISM 



nucleus, but the great weight of scientific 

 opinion at present inclines to the view that the 

 chromatin fragments are the essential part not 

 only of the nucleus but of the whole cell.* It 

 seems as if it were the only part of the nucleus 

 which is specifically sorted out so as to be 

 handed on from cell to cell, and it also seems 

 that it has the power of producing all the other 

 elements of the cell. It consists of a number 



of small bodies which are called chromosomes 







and in the division of cells of which fuller de- 

 tails will shortly be given these chromosomes 

 are evenly divided between the mother and the 

 daughter cells. 



The nucleus then would appear to be the 

 most important part of the cell and the chro- 

 mosomes are the essential part of the nucleus. 

 Slightly to anticipate matters which will be 

 made more clear hi another chapter, it may 

 here be said that in addition to the two axioms 

 laid down at the commencement of this 

 chapter we are now in a position to accept 

 a third, laid down by Flemming in 1882, Omnis 



* Without in any way exhausting this important contro- 

 versy, it may be noted that whilst some have confined 

 the heritable factors (taken as material) to the chromatin, 

 others think that cytoplasm is also concerned in this, and 

 some would attach those factors which are inherited on 

 Mendelian lines (it being held by them that all are not) 

 to the one and the non-Mendelianly inherited to the other. 

 The matter is still quite unsettled. 



