36 Heredity, Variation and Genius 



enquiry : their patient labours must prove or 

 disprove the sound or unsound speculations of 

 impatient theory. 



Is it true that the germ-cell forms no living 

 part of the body in which it lives and on which 

 it depends for life, but is something living in yet 

 practically aloof from it, in but not of it ? While 

 every other differentiated cell is an integral part 

 of an organic unity, in community of vital inter- 

 action, represented in its whole life and function, 

 incapable of living separate, are we to think that 

 the germ-cell or any part of it has no such inti- 

 mate physiological relations ; that it lodges there 

 monklike in close seclusion, independent and 

 indifferent, immersed in its present self and 

 silently brooding on its life to come ; that it only 

 exacts the nourishment it needs from its living 

 medium, thriving well or ill according as it 

 is well or ill fed ; affected it is true by toxins 

 which hurt its nutrition, but not otherwise hurt 

 or helped by its organic environment, let the 

 modifications of this from birth to death be 

 never so great ? 



In that case the conclusion follows that when 

 in his maturity or later a person born of a 

 poor and vicious stock, but subjected afterwards 

 systematically to good influences in wholesome 

 moral and intellectual surroundings, emits a re- 

 productive germ it contains no trace of that 

 which has been acquired by him and incorporated 

 in his structure ; and again that the reproductive 



