by assuming " intra-germinal selection " 41 



followed of course by corresponding varia- 

 tions in the body that they eventually build 

 up. This, his latest theory, the theory of 

 intra-germinal selection, has practically con- 

 vinced nobody; though it has been hailed 

 by opponents of Darwinism as sounding the 

 knell of the theory of natural selection ^ 

 Why, even if we allow the propriety of 

 regarding Weismann's hypothetical deter- 

 minants as organisms struggling for nutri- 

 ment — and facts seem to be against it^ — 



* "With a 'rehabilitation' of natural selection in the real 

 Darwinian meaning and only fair application of the phrase the 

 new theory has nothing whatever to do. It is, much more, 

 a distinct admission of the inadequacy of natural selection to do 

 what has long been claimed for it." Kellogg, Darwinism to-day ^ 

 1907, p. 199. 



2 "Actual experimentation on the influence of food-supply in 

 development does not bear out the assumption on which the 

 theory of germinal selection rests. Weisraann himself gave the 

 larvae of flies... an abnormally small food supply..., with the only 

 result that the mature individuals were dwarfed ; that all their 

 parts were reduced in size, but the actual proportions... were 



