Inheritance Materials of Germ-Cells 89 



boldness is that the germ-cell chromosomes may properly 

 enough be said to be differential, if only one never loses 

 sight of the fact that they are differential in no other sense 

 than are any other particles or substances of the germ- 

 cells or any other cells which participate in the production 

 of species-attributes. 



Brief Reference to the Untoward Implications of the Germ- 

 plasm Conception of Heredity 



The somewhat laborious task of exhibiting the difference 

 between conceiving the physical basis of heredity from the 

 elementalist and from the organismalist standpoints may 

 well be brought to a close by calling attention to the impli- 

 cation of the two conceptions as applied to heredity in man 

 himself. Looked at from this direction the germ-plasm 

 dogma is seen to be chargable with the grave offence of 

 having added its weight to a conception of human life, the 

 overcoming of which has been consciously or unconsciously 

 man's aim throughout the whole vast drama of his hard, 

 slow progress from lower to higher levels of civilization 

 the conception that his life is the result of forces against 

 which his aspirations and efforts are impotent. As ap- 

 plied to man this form of fatalism is no less sure and no less 

 dire in its tendencies than have been any of the innumerable 

 theistic forms of fatalism that have prevailed through the 

 centuries. It is almost certain that the ardor with which 

 Eugenics has been espoused by several biologists is due 

 in considerable measure to the fact that they have felt 

 more or less definitely this sinister implication of the theory, 

 and have turned to Eugenics as the only weapon against 

 its evil forebodings. The germ-plasmic eugenist virtually 

 says, "Yes, indeed is man a reasoning, willing, aspiring 

 animal, but all his activities in these ways are futile so far 

 as the race as a whole is concerned, except as they are 



