CHAP, xvm A "FAIRY TALE OF SCIENCE"? 255 



ing to Romanes, this is simply a piece of obstinacy 

 designed to show that, if Weismann was certainly 

 half in the wrong, yet he may have been half in the 

 right. Romanes therefore thinks it is to be dismissed 

 as an unproved and improbable assumption. The 

 third point also falls to the ground. The germ plasm 

 of one of the higher plants or animals or men is not 

 simply a one-celled creature rearranged ; it is such a 

 creature, if you like, but modified as well as rearranged 

 modified to a certain extent all along the course of 

 its " phylogeny," wherever variation occurred. 



Modified how far ? That is for us a very important 

 question. Do Weismann's newer views admit of use- 

 inheritance in the literal sense ? Or do they only 

 admit of certain changes in the germ plasm, sympa- 

 thetic to vital changes in the parental organism, but 

 not necessarily initiating the same changes in the 

 offspring ? In Romanes' language, does Weismann 

 now accept representative congenital changes ( = true 

 use-inheritance), or only the lower class or classes, 

 nutritive changes ( = Weismann's new theory of the 

 origin of variation), or nutritive and specialised ? l 

 This is a question of importance for us as students of 

 human progress. True use-inheritance, if it occurs, 

 constitutes a possibility of rapid advance in contrast 

 to the painfully circuitous method of natural selection. 

 So far as I am aware Weismann has not spoken on 

 this point. Reluctantly, and as it were casually, he 

 has cancelled the central doctrine of his scheme, that 

 of the absolute continuity and stability of germ 

 plasm. It must be deemed at least possible, accord- 



1 Romanes gives as an example of the last : " The fathers have 

 eaten sour grapes, and the children " were born with wry necks ! 



