THEORIES OF WEISMAW AND DE VRIES 399 



deprived of their tails, without yieldiag any evidence that 

 the mutilations were inheritable. 



To take one other case that is less superlicial, it is gener- 

 ally believed that the thirst for alcoholic licjuors has been 

 transmitted to the children of drunkards, and while WY'ismann 

 admits the possibility of this, he maintains that it is owing 

 to the germinal elements being exposed to the influence of 

 the alcohol circulating in the blood of the parent or parents; 

 and if this be the case it would not be the inheritance of an 

 acquired character, but the response of the organism to a 

 drug producing directly a variation in the germ-plasm. 



Xot\dthstanding the well-defined opposition of Weismann, 

 the inheritance of acquired characters is still a mooted ques- 

 tion. Herbert Spencer argued in favor of it, and during his 

 lifetime had many a pointed controversy with Weismann. 

 Eimer stands unalterably against Weismann's position, and 

 the Neo-Lamarckians stand for the direct inheritance of use- 

 ful variations in bodily structure. The question is still 

 undetermined and is open to experimental observation. In 

 its present state there are competent observers maintaining 

 both sides, but it must be confessed that there is not a single 

 case in which the supposed inheritance of an acquired char- 

 acter has stood the test of critical examination. 



The basis of Weismann's argument is not difficult to 

 understand. Acquired characters affect the body-cells, and 

 according to his view the latter are simply a vehicle for the 

 germinal elements, which are the only things concerned in 

 the transmission of hereditary qualities. Inheritance, there- 

 fore, must come through alterations in the germ-plasm, and 

 not directly through changes in the body-cells. 



Weismann, the Man. — The man who for more than forty 

 years has been elaborating this theory (Fig. 114) is still living 

 and actively at work in the University of Freiburg. August 

 Weismann w^as born at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1834. He 



