276 Theories Treating of Inheritance 



stance, similar throughout the whole organism, which 

 as he himself states, makes histological differentiation at 

 least inexplicable. 



THEORIES OF CHEMICAL DEVELOPMENT 



In his fundamental work "The Struggle of the Parts 

 of the Organism," and therefore at a time, before Roux 

 had yet reached the preformistic view of idioplasm or 

 germ plasm which he later very clearly adopted, and 

 which in many respects is like the conception of Weis- 

 mann; when also he still considered development to be 

 rather the complex result of a long series of purely 

 chemical phenomena, and nevertheless had not yet wel- 

 comed Weismann's theory of the non-inheritance of 

 acquired characters as a deliverance from a nightmare, 

 at that time he sought to explain this inheritance in the 

 following way: 



First he notes that the germ plasm although it be- 

 comes separated at the very commencement of develop- 

 ment from the organism in process of formation, 

 "remains nevertheless dependent upon and in relation 

 with this organism; for it must be fed and grow and 

 multiply and to that end it receives its nourishment from 

 its parent by chemical metabolism, and might still be 

 influenced in its own nature in this way." 209 



He supposes further that on the one hand each 

 structural formation may be conditioned by certain spe- 

 cial, chemical relations, and vice versa that each variation 

 of form which the adult organism undergoes through 

 functional adaptation produces in its turn a certain 



M9 Roux: Der Kampf der Teile im Organismus. P. 60. 



