242 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART iv 



ingenious epicycles. Instead of leading to new gen- 

 eralisations and broad views of things, the changes 

 have made it complex and artificial-looking. True or 

 false, the older Weismannism is at any rate clear, 

 clearer than the new. And Mr. Kidd's sociology 

 seems to appeal to the Weismann of 1893, or of still 

 earlier years, not to the author of the later more hesi- 

 tating statements. 



At first, then, Weismann had held that germ plasm 

 was never affected by the life of the organism in 

 which it was temporarily lodged. It was perfectly 

 continuous, absolutely stable. 1 Yet varieties occurred ; 

 for evolution occurred ; and there was no cause of 

 evolution except natural selection ; and natural selec- 

 tion could only work upon given materials. Whence 

 then did varieties proceed? From amphimixis and 

 from that alone ; in other words, from the processes 

 of bisexual parentage. There was " nowhere else " 

 for variations to come from on this early and rigid 

 theory of Weismann's ; and the theory threw a de- 

 lightfully definite and clear light on the cloudy prob- 

 lem, What is the origin of variations ? No doubt 

 there was a difficulty here. If individual variation 

 is due simply to parentage, why are not all the off- 

 spring of the same pair facsimiles of each other? 

 Can science clear up this mystery ? Weismann in 

 his early phase explained it by the extrusion of one 

 of the two polar bodies expelled from the ovum shortly 

 before or more usually shortly after fertilisation. 

 I do not know that I understand this. Up till now, 



1 Apparently the phraseology is Romanes'. To a layman it looks 

 tautological. Romanes himself (pp. 49, 86 of Weismannistn) seems 

 unable to keep the two terms distinct in their application. 



