270 Theories Treating of Inheritance 



the living substances characteristic of their species. We 

 are able in this way to present even a mathematical defini- 

 tion of the personality of a given individual of a species, 

 to a certain extent an arithmetical personal description 

 of this individual, namely the list of co-efficients of the 

 mixture of his specific substances." 204 



The proportions of this mixture persist unaltered in 

 all cells of the same organism. Upon this mixture 

 depends the quality of the chemical reactions, i. e. of the 

 molecular movements; upon these latter again depend 

 the molar movements or osmotic currents of nutritive and 

 excretive material; upon the molar movement finally 

 depends the form of each plastid as well as that of the 

 most complicated organism: 



"It is absolutely useless to suppose, in the egg which 

 produces man, other characters present than for example 

 those of a simple hepatic or epithelial assimilative ele- 

 ment, determining by this assimilation the molar move- 

 ments around it. These molar movements associated 

 with the movements which result from assimilation in 

 neighboring elements, and also with the existence of the 

 skeleton such as is constituted in a thenceforth unchange- 

 able form from the moment of its first anlage, determine 

 the conditions of local equilibrium from which the local 

 form of the body results. Analogously as soon as a 

 human element (the fecundated egg) is capable of liv- 

 ing by itself alone, the molar movements, which assimila- 

 tion provokes first in this element alone and later in all 

 which are derived from it, determine the successive 

 forms of the growing mass arising from assimilation. 

 The phenomenon appears from the outside then to be 



204 Le Dantec : Ibid. P. 267. 



