82 REMARKS ON CERTAIN [XL 



characters can be inherited in a latent state, and we also know 

 that the process of inheritance is associated with a certain 

 substance, the idioplasm of the germ-cell. Such idioplasm must 

 therefore be in an inactive state during the period of latency. 



If it can be demonstrated that such principles suffice to 

 explain the phenomena of heredity, we have made an essential 

 advance beyond the ideal theory of pangenesis, which is built up 

 on suppositions which do not correspond with realities. Per- 

 haps the path which I have struck out may by degrees lead to 

 a satisfactory solution of the numerous questions connected 

 with heredity ; perhaps further investigation may show that 

 we are on the wrong track and must abandon it ; what the 

 future of the question may be no one can foretell. My thoughts 

 upon heredity are not final, but rather serve as a starting-point 

 for further thought; they constitute no complete theory of 

 heredity which claims to have satisfied all sides of this most 

 complex subject ; they are rather ' researches ' which, if fortune 

 favours, will, sooner or later, directly or indirectly, lead to the 

 formation of a real theory. I have expressly stated this in the 

 Preface to the Enghsh Edition of my collected essays. 



In the same place I have emphasized the fact that my book 

 did not originate as a whole, but is made up of a series of 

 researches, each of which, I hope, marks some advance, each 

 of which is built up on the foundation provided by the previous 

 one. It contains to some extent the history of the development 

 of my views as they have gradually shaped themselves in the 

 course of nearly ten years' work. It is therefore unreasonable 

 to extract ideas from the earlier essays and to make use of 

 them against the later views. All the essays have been left 



unchanged, and ' certain errors of interpretation left 



uncorrected ^' because otherwise the intimate connection which 

 exists between the essays could not have been distinctly traced. 

 The objections which Professor Vines urges against my 

 theory of the Continuity of the Germ-plasm entirely depend, in 

 my opinion, on an unintentional confusion of my ideas ; for he 

 applies the views of the second essay to the ideas in some of 

 the later ones, with which they do not harmonize. I will at- 

 tempt to explain this in few words : in my second essay- (1883) 



^ See Author's Preface to First Edition, Vol. I, p. iv. 



* See Vol. I, p. 67. 



