206 THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LIFE 



1. When a being, subjected to a variation under the 

 influence of a factor B, to which its species is unaccustomed, 

 acquires thereby a character C, is this character repre- 

 sented in the hereditary patrimony of the being ? 



2. Is the modification introduced into the hereditary 

 patrimony such that the acquired character C will be inevit- 

 ably reproduced in the child of the being thus modified, 

 even when the factor B which determined the father's 

 variation at a certain age is not found at the same age in 

 the education of the son ? This question has commonly 

 been understood in a quite different manner from that 

 suggested by all our previous considerations. We, in fact, 

 know that we ought not to consider the character C as a 

 local modification analogous to what is produced by a 

 stain on a statue. The living organism is a whole in equili- 

 brium, and every rupture of the equilibrium realized at one 

 point of the body is transmitted to the whole individual, 

 either by the interior medium or by protoplasmic con- 

 tinuity. We have, therefore, a necessary answer to the 

 first of these questions : l 



The variation produced by the factor B most certainly 

 had its rebound in the hereditary patrimony. 



It is a more delicate matter to answer the second ques- 

 tion. 



Here the question is whether the variation, which inevit- 

 ably reaches the hereditary patrimony by influencing in the 

 patrimony the body's general state of equilibrium, re- 

 mains fixed in the hereditary patrimony even after the 

 original rebound is over. A spring keeps its tension 

 as long as you press on it ; but loses it when you let go. 



1 The Neo-Darwinians, having adopted the static system of 

 Weismann, naturally deny all possibility of transmission of acquired 

 characters. 



