356 TRANSMISSION 



In every case, bird or mammal, plant or animal, the new indi- 

 vidual begins with the fertilized germ, not at some later period 

 called birth ; and for our purposes the distinction should not be 

 whether the variation was implanted before or after birth, but 

 whether its cause was internal or external to the germ. 



Attention should be fixed upon the germ plasm, the physical 

 basis of life and the only known avenue of transmission from 

 one generation to the next, and the distinction should be clearly 

 made between variations due to changes in its structure from 

 internal or other causes, and those changes of the organism 

 due to influences exerted directly upon the organism during its 

 development. As this discussion proceeds it should be clearly 

 borne in mind that no character can be transmitted, no matter 

 how strongly present, unless the germinal matter is in some way 

 previotisly affected. Nothing else passes over from parent to 

 Offspring, and no other medium of transmission is possible. The 

 study is, therefore, clearly defined. Do modifications, as such, 

 affect the .germ directly, and so become transmitted ; or, if not, 

 do the same influences that affect the developing individual 

 also affect the germinal matter in the same direction, giving all 

 descendants an initial trend or modification similar to the one 

 impressed upon the parent ? 



SECTION II EVIDENCE FROM THE NATURE OF 

 VARIATION 



In the opinion of the writer it is fundamentally wrong, both 

 logically and biologically, to conceive of the individual as made 

 up of two sets of faculties, one inherited and the other 

 acquired. The distinction not only does not rest upon good 

 ground, but in its application to the facts of life it leads to most 

 unfortunate conceptions and to most erroneous conclusions. It 

 is this fundamental misconception of the function of the environ- 

 ment that is responsible for most of the foggy thinking which 

 marks the contention over the question o*f inheritance of acquired 

 characters, and which nowhere else bears such unfortunate fruit 

 as in the field of practical affairs. In general evolution it does 

 not matter greatly whether acquired (?) characters are inherited 





