i6 HERBERT SPENCER AND 



kind, the somatoplasm, consists of cells in which the 

 different kinds of biophors have been sorted out or 

 segregated in exact correspondence, as regards kind and 

 situation, with the various tissues and structures of which 

 the cells are components. 



The germ-plasm, on this conception, is the permanent 

 material, in which all the specific characters of the race 

 are collected, and is handed on from generation to genera- 

 tion. The body or soma is, in every generation, the 

 fleeting expression of the qualities contained in the germ- 

 plasm. These qualities are expressed, or made manifest, 

 in the development of every individual from the germ, 

 by the continued segregation of the biophors in the 

 course of cell-division, some kinds passing into one ceU, 

 some kinds into another, and this process is repeated at 

 every stage of division until, at last, all the different kinds 

 of biophors are separated into cells or cell-groups, and 

 then give rise to the specific characters which they 

 represent. Their mission is then fulfilled, and, being 

 incapable of further development, they perish in time ; 

 but not before the individual has provided for the 

 perpetuation of the race by giving off fresh germ-cells, 

 which are derived from a store of the original germ-plasm 

 reserved, so to speak, during the ontogeny in a special 

 group of cells. These are the outlines of Weismann's 

 theory. I need not pursue it into its intricacies and shov/ 

 how, from a consideration of the fact that every part 

 of an animal is independently variable, and that these 

 variations are heritable, he had to assume that the germ 

 must contain as many biophors as there are different 

 kinds of cell-groups giving rise to independently variable 

 structures, and that these biophors must be grouped into 

 units of a higher order called determinants, and the 

 determinants into yet higher groups called ids, each id 

 containing all the determinants necessary for the forma- 

 tion of an individual and having a definite organization 

 or architecture. Further, that every germ-cell must 



