90 The Unity of the Organism 



brought to bear, extrinsically and operatively rather than 

 organically, on the Germ-Plasm." This form of the Eu- 

 genic idea corresponds in spirit to the propitiative offerings 

 of primitive religion. It aims to mollify by human agency 

 powers that act upon men's lives, but which are in them- 

 selves largely extraneous, largely evil, and wholly irre- 

 sponsible. 



What eugenists of this school have failed to see, evidently, 

 is that even were unit-factors as differentiate from one 

 another in heredity as the extremest Mendelist conceives 

 them to be, and that even were the germ-plasm improved up 

 to the level of his highest hopes, his results in terms of ac- 

 tual human lives and social conditions would be distressingly 

 meager. They would be so, because whether unit-factors 

 exist independently in heredity or not, they certainly do 

 not exist thus independently in development and function. 

 In these ways they interact upon one another in the most 

 vital manner, as physiology, especially of the internal se- 

 cretions and the nervous system, and as physiological and 

 social psychology are rapidly and conclusively demon- 

 strating. 



We thus end our examination of the means by which or- 

 ganisms produce others of their kind with the conclusion 

 that the material through which reproduction is accom- 

 plished is in the most vital way part and parcel of the 

 organism, that is, that the germ-cells are somehow stamped 

 through and through, potentially, with the characteristics 

 of the kind, or race, or species to which the producing or- 

 ganism belongs. And with this we are ready to pass to the 

 examination of those integrative phenomena of the organ- 

 ism generally, one manifestation of which is this very nature 

 of the germ-cells. 



REFERENCE INDEX 



1. Marshall 292 4. Riddle 10 



2. Hertwig, R. ('12) 75 5. Wilson, E. B. ('14) 351 



3. King 232 6. Wilson^ E. B. ('00) 7 



