8 Introduction 



conception and elaboration up till then was considered 

 quite independently of the question of the possibility or 

 impossibility of the inheritance of acquired characters, 

 but which supported by an elementary hypothetical 

 phenomenon, which in certain respects finds its counter- 

 part in the inorganic world, becomes recognizable at once 

 as a most complete explanation of this inheritance. 



Finally in the last chapter we endeavor to show how 

 this elementary hypothetical phenomenon on which the 

 new biogenetic theory rests, explains also a fundamental, 

 psychic phenomenon, to wit, memory and indeed the most 

 characteristic properties of the vital phenomenon in gen- 

 eral. And so this elementary hypothetical phenomenon 

 seems to us capable of bringing together within it and 

 referring to one basis not only the whole group of genetic 

 phenomena, but all vital phenomena whatever in the very 

 widest sense of the word. 



Since, for the reasons above stated, the inheritance of 

 acquired characters is a question affecting positive philos- 

 ophy in the Comtian sense or scientific philosophy, the 

 author ventures to hope that biologists and naturalists 

 may not regard him as an unbidden intruder into their 

 domain, but rather since he is the first to recognize the 

 many gaps and shortcomings of his work, he ventures to 

 hope that he may count upon especial consideration, be- 

 cause of the great difficulties with which he who is no 

 specialist has had to contend in studies of so difficult a 

 nature. 



Milan, May, 1905. E. R. 



