CHAPTER III 



THE TRANSMISSION OF HEREDITARY CHARACTERS 



FROM THE NUCLEI TO THE OTHER ORGANS 



OF THE PROTOPLASTS 



5. The Hypothesis of Transmission 



The question of a transmission of hereditary charac- 

 ters from the nuclei to the other organs of the protoplasts 

 has been repeatedly raised in the foregoing sections. But, 

 if we review all the facts combined in the preceding chap- 

 ter, and in this, the necessity of the assumption of such 

 transmission is forced upon us. 



The protoplasts of the plant possess a visible organi- 

 zation, which, at every cell-division, is transmitted by 

 division of the individual organs, directly from the 

 mother-cell to its daughter-cells. The heredity is here 

 a visible and not a latent one. But the individual or- 

 gans are ontogenetically independent from each other; 

 they originate only through the division of such as are 

 already present. And even if, in the course of develop- 

 ment, they adapt themselves to various functions and, in 

 doing so, receive other names, and although their origin 

 in individual cases is not yet cleared up, so much is, on 

 the whole, certain, that the nucleus, the chromatophores, 

 the vacuoles and the granular plasm, and probably also 

 the limiting membrane, are primary organs which never 

 arise from each other, but only multiply side by side. 



Each of these primary organs possesses a complement 

 of characters and potentialities which, together, form the 



