THE REPRODUCTION OF LIFE. 91 



from the parent organism to complete the repro- 

 ductive process. In man, as in all the higher 

 forms of life, the male and female principles exist 

 in separate organisms, so that the male half of a Bi-sexua.1 

 new life is produced in the father's nature and the 

 female half in the mother's nature; by the union 

 of these two halves a new being having all the 

 physical, mental and moral characteristics of its 

 parents is produced. 



Just how the parent organism involves into 

 the new life all its physical, mental and moral 

 peculiarities, is a mystery that has been the sub- 

 ject of endless speculation, to which I do not care of 

 to add. I may say, however, that none of the 

 theories of those who deny the existence of the 

 soul explain all the facts of reproduction. Weis- 

 mann's theory of "the continuity of the germ- 

 plasm,'' fails to explain the effect of acquired 

 characters and maternal impressions. The theory 



nothing to the next generation except what it has received 

 from its parents or what may originate in itself. It resem- 

 bles its so-called parent body simply because* it has been 

 developed from the same mass of formative material. 

 Weismann's theory then of "the continuity of the germ- 

 plasm" is : that this formative material or germ-plasm has 

 been continuous through all generations of successively 

 perishing bodies, which therefore stand to it in much the 

 same relation as annual shoots to a perennial stem : the 

 shoots resemble one another simply because they are all 

 grown from the same stock. The germ-plasm, therefore, 

 continues in an unbroken line from generation to genera- 

 tion, from which at intervals the body gr.ows up, lives its 

 life and dies, in a manner analogous to the development of 

 fronds of the fern from the underground rhizome. 



It is generally held by those who accept Weismann's 

 theory of "the continuity of the germ-plasm" that there can 



OF THE 



UNIVERSITY 



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