THE STANDPOINT OF BIOLOGISTS. 29 



Galton and Weismann. 



Amongst those who were pioneers are Galton and 

 Weismann, and, curiously enough, in England and 

 Germany these two men, independently of each other, 

 came to the same conclusion respecting the non- 

 inheritance of acquired qualities, and pointed out that 

 the facts of development indicate that the generative 

 matter is passed on from one generation to another, 

 remaining intact in the body of the parent, and that 

 we have no reason to suppose that it could be influ- 

 enced by changes in other parts of the parental 

 organism. It is not uninteresting to note and contrast 

 in these two investigators the action of the typically 

 English and typically German mind, morei especially 

 as the comparison is perhaps equally complimentary 

 to the two nationalities, and indicates the value of 

 results arrived at by workers of different individu- 

 alities. 



Galton was first in the field, and as long ago as 

 iS/6 1 made the following clear and concise state- 

 ment : " The conclusion to be drawn from the fore- 

 going arguments is that we might almost reserve our 

 belief that the structural cells can react on the sexual 

 elements at all, and we may be confident that at most 

 they do so in a very faint degree: in other words, 



1 "Journal of the Anthropological Institute," vol. v., pp. 

 344-7- 



