450 SUPPOSED TRANSMISSION OF MUTILATIONS. [VIII. 



the formation of the scar : for there is neither skin nor the 

 preformed germ of any of the adult organs in the germ-plasm, 

 but only a uniform molecular structure which, in the course 

 of many thousand stages of transformation, must tend to the 

 formation of a soma including a skin. The change in the germ- 

 plasm which would lead to the transmission of the scar, must 

 therefore be of such a kind as to influence the course of onto- 

 geny in one of its later stages, so that an interruption of the 

 normal formation of skin, and the intercalation of the tissue of 

 the scar, would occur at a certain part of the body. I do not 

 maintain that equally minute changes of the germ-plasm could 

 not occur : on the contrary, individual variation shows us that the 

 germ-plasm contains potentially all the minutest peculiarities 

 of the individual ; but I have in vain tried to understand how 

 such minute changes of the germ-plasm in the germ-cells could 

 be caused by the appearance of a scar or some other mutilation 

 of the body. In this respect I think that Blumenbach's con- 

 dition is nearly fulfilled : he was inclined to declare himself 

 against the transmission of mutilations, but only if it were 

 proved that such transmission was impossible. Although this 

 cannot be strictly proved, it can nevertheless be shown that 

 the apparatus presupposed by such transmission must be so 

 immensely complex, nay ! so altogether inconceivable, that we 

 are quite justified in doubting the possibility of its existence as 

 long as there are no facts which prove that it must be present. 

 I therefore do not agree with the recent assertion^ that Blu- 

 menbach's condition cannot be fulfilled to-day, just as it was 

 impossible at the time when it was first brought forward. But 

 if nevertheless such a mysterious mechanism existed between 

 the parts of the body and the germ-cells, by means of which 

 each change in the former could be reproduced in a different 

 manner in the latter, the effects of this marvellous mechanism 

 would certainly be perceptible and could be subjected to ex- 

 periment. 



But at present we have no evidence of the existence of any 

 such effects ; and the experiments described above disprove all 

 the cases of the supposed transmission of single mutilations. 



Of course, I do not maintain that such cases are to be always 

 explained by want of sufficient observation. In order to make 

 ^ See Brock, 'Biolog. Centralblatt,' Bd. VIII. p. 497, 1888. 



