92 GENETICS 



was modified, but because at the same time and in the 

 same way that the parental soma was taking on a 

 modification, the germ was likewise modified. This, to 

 use the drug clerk's phraseology, is "something just as 

 good" as the inheritance of acquired characters but 

 it is not the Weismannian brand. 



Finally, Case V shows a true mutation which occurs 

 in the parental germplasm but does not appear to the 

 light of day until the offspring develops. 



15. CONCLUSION 



But even granting that the somatoplasm affects the 

 germ-cells, the inheritance of acquired characters is 

 by no means thereby established. 



In order to do this, the precise acquired character 

 in question, which indirectly exercised its influence 

 upon the germ, must be redeveloped, and, although 

 the germplasm might conceivably receive an influence 

 from the somatoplasm and be affected by it in a gen- 

 eral way, it is a different matter entirely to develop 

 anew the replica of the character itself which is sup- 

 posed to have been acquired. 



It will be seen in subsequent pages, under the dis- 

 cussion of data furnished by experimental breeding, 

 that the weight of probability is decidedly against 

 the time-honored belief in the inheritance of acquired 

 characters. 



