BEFORE DARWIN AND AFTER. 4(55 



provement of the breed, through a remorseless 

 weeding-out of the unfit. But when we rise 

 to man, the problem becomes complicated with 

 other considerings. Still the new science (Eu- 

 genics) is grappling bravely with the human 

 or social side of the question. 



The scientist after Darwin who has most 

 directly pushed into the heart of the subject 

 is the German, Weismann. He illustrated and 

 enforced the distinction between the germ-cell 

 and the body-cell, the former is transmitted, 

 the latter is not. Accordingly all heredity 

 comes down through the germ-cell or germ- 

 plasma ; necessarily this means that there has 

 been a continuous cellular stream through all 

 organic existence from the original fountain 

 of Life, which is tapped and flows forth into 

 these germ-cells, eternal, immortal, till the 

 Life of the planet ceases. On the other hand 

 the body-cells are purely individual, are not 

 inherited. As an inference from this proposi- 

 tion, Weismann declares that there is no in- 

 heritance of acquired characters. Against 

 him on this point rose a good deal of opposi- 

 tion headed by Herbert Spencer, who stoutly 

 maintained that traits won by the individual 

 for the first time have been often transmitted 

 to his posterity. The discussion revived the 

 work of the almost forgotten Lamarck who 

 had also propounded a theory of Evolution at 



