170 Inheritance of Acquired Characters 



penetrate if the corresponding morphological modification 

 is to be inheritable, it follows that amputations, unlike 

 functional adaptations, could not as a rule leave any 

 trace of themselves in the descendants. 



But in still another very essential point amputations 

 are different from functional adaptation. The ampu- 

 tation of a limb, or of a piece of a tail, does not con- 

 stitute in any way the mode of reaction of the organism 

 to a definite external influence, but rather it is this 

 external influence itself. How then will its reproduction 

 in the new organism be possible? This would be the 

 same thing as expecting that an individual who had 

 been accustomed throughout his life to bear a burden 

 upon his shoulders as exercise, should transmit to his 

 son not only stronger bones and muscles but also the 

 burden itself which was the cause of this strengthening. 



So that the most that could be transmitted to the 

 descendants of an animal \vhich had undergone some 

 amputation, would be the mode of reaction of the organ- 

 ism to this gross external influence, that is all the phe- 

 nomena constituting the cicatrization, properly so called, 

 of the wound, as w r ell as the establishment of a new local 

 equilibrium. We must however bear in mind in this 

 connection that the reproduction in the child of con- 

 siderably thicker and stronger bones and muscles will 

 not be hindered by the fact that it is not exposed to the 

 same external influence which acted upon the parent, 

 i. e. by the fact that it does not bear the same burden 

 as its father, but that if one does not also repeat the 

 amputation, the repetition of all the phenomena con- 

 stituting the cicatrization of the wound and the reestab- 

 lishment of a new equilibrium could not but be very 

 much hindered and usually quite prevented by the pres- 



