Correspuiuleuci' with t'liark^ Danrin 186 



(laltoii lu'M defines the word 'stirp' to 



"express tlio sum total of the f^erins, ^Mnimul>>s or wimtevor thuy may Ims caIUmI, which an» to 

 1)0 found, nccoriliiiff to every thiiory of organic units, in the newly furtiliMwl ovum — that in in 

 the oarly pre embryonic stage — from which tiiiii! it roceives nothing further irom it* |>arentii, 



not even fn)m its mother, than mere nutriment' Thin word 'Htirp,' which I shall venture 



to uHo, is equally ap]ilicable to the contents of 1iu<1h, anil will, I think, \n- found very convenient, 

 and cannot apparently IcAcl to misapprehension." 



We now pass to the essential features of Galton's theory, which corre- 

 spotids fur more closely than Darwin's to niotlern ideas, indeed it is often 

 dirticult to say how much modfin idc.is luivt- fjikcii fKnn (I.iltdn uifliout 

 acknowledtjinent of the source. 



The stirp Is the organised aggn'gate of organic umtH, or germs. The 

 personal structure develops by selection out of a small portion of these 

 units, and the sexual elements of the new individual are genemted by the 

 residumn of the stirp. There is no free circulation of gemmules from the cells 

 to be aggregated in the sexual organs. When the somatic elements are being 

 formed from the stirp any segmentation may contain 'stray and alien gem- 

 mules,' and many of these may become entangled and find lo«lgment in the 

 tissue. When these gemmules are lodged in great variety, the somatic cells 

 are really reproductive cells and thus Galton would account for the replacement 

 of a lost limb in the lower animals, or the reparation of .simple tissues in the 

 higher ones. The selectioit of organic units to form the somatic characters of 

 the individual from the whole host in his stirp Cialton looks uj>on as of the 

 highest importance. He considers that a sort of struggle for place goes on 

 among the innumerable germs of the stirp, and those germs which are most 

 frequent or have certain intrinsic (pialities^ will be most successful. He 

 considers that this continual selection leads ultimately in unisexual repro- 

 duction to the elimination of nece.ssary units and so to degeneration; sex, he 

 argues, is not primary, l)ut a residt of the advantage of a more primary 

 double parentage, which lessens the chance of one or more of the needful 

 species of germs in the stirp disappearing by selection'. Galton even goes so 

 far as to suggest that where an excess of germs liius been withdrawn from 

 the stirp to form a marked character, for example, great ability or even a 

 pathologic^d state, there will be an absence of tliese germs in the residue, 

 which goes to form the new .sexual element, and he accordingly accounts in 

 this way for the ofispring of a man of genius having small ability, or again 



' (Jaltcm (p. 341) very aptly remarks that if paugenetic gemmules circulated freely through 

 the syst«!m. there can be little doubt that they would reach the Inxly of an unlwrn child. Thus 

 the paternal gemmules in that body would be dominated by an invasion of maternal gemmules 

 with the final ivsult that an individual would ti-ansmit maternal peculiarities far more than 

 piternal ones; "in other wonls people would resemble their maternal grandmothers very much 

 u\ore than other gnmdparents, which is not at all the case." 



'•' The "dominant germs" arc "those that achieve development" (p. 341.) 

 ■' "There is yet another advantage in double parentage, namely that as the stirp whenct; 

 j^_ the child sprang is only half the size of the combined stirps of his two pjirents, it follows that 

 l^k one-half of his possible heritage must have l)ecn suppresse<l. This implies a sharp struggle for 

 I^B place among the competing germs, and the success, as we may infer, of the fitt-er half of their 

 I^B numerous varieties." (p. 334.) 



IH run X4 



 



