Translation from Hering 79 



in a like way to that in which the parent organism re- 

 sponded, of which it was once part, and in the events 

 of whose history it was itself also an accomplice ? ^ When 

 an action through long habit or continual practice has 

 become so much a second nature to any organisation that 

 its effects will penetrate, though ever so faintly, into the 

 germ that lies within it, and when this last comes to find 

 itself in a new sphere, to extend itself, and develop into 

 a new creature — (the individual parts of which are still 

 always the creature itself and flesh of its flesh, so that 

 what is reproduced is the same being as that in company 

 with which the germ once lived, and of which it was once 

 actually a part) — all this is as wonderful as when a grey- 

 haired man remembers the events of his own childhood ; 

 but it is not more so. Whether we say that the same 

 organised substance is again reproducing its past expe- 

 rience, or whether we prefer to hold that an offshoot or 

 part of the original substance has waxed and developed 

 itself since separation from the parent stock, it is plain 

 that this will constitute a difference of degree, not kind. 



When we reflect upon the fact that unimportant acquired 

 characteristics can be reproduced in offspring, we are apt 

 to forget that offspring is only a full-sized reproduction 

 of the parent — a reproduction, moreover, that goes as far 

 as possible into detail. We are so accustomed to consider 

 family resemblance a matter of course, that we are some- 

 times surprised when a child is in some respect unlike 

 its parent ; surely, however, the infinite number of points 



^ It may be asked what is meant by responding. I may repeat 

 that I understand Professor Hering to mean that there exists in the 

 offspring certain vibrations, which are many of them too faint to 

 upset equiHbrium and thus generate action, until they receive an 

 accession of force from without by the running into them of vibra- 

 tions of similar characteristics to their own, which last vibrations 

 have been set up by exterior objects. On this they become strong 

 enough to generate that corporeal earthquake which we call action. 



This may be true or not, but it is at any rate intelligible ; whereas 

 much that is written about " fraying channels " raises no definite 

 ideas in the mind. 



