CHEMICAL PHENOMENA IN LIFE 



is now that the property of being colourless remains 

 when the microbe is again cultivated at the 

 ordinary temperature of 18 degrees. One would 

 feel inclined to suppose that it had lost its property 

 of producing the red pigment by the influence of 

 heat. The loss is undoubtedly hereditary, for 

 many generations are formed under normal 

 temperature conditions which are absolutely 

 without any red hue. But after a certain number 

 of generations, which may be many thousands, the 

 red hue returns, and the bacterium regains its 

 former appearance. Such phenomena seem to be 

 not very rare. If we were beings of quite short 

 duration of life, we would perhaps believe that the 

 loss of red pigment in these bacteria was real 

 inheritance. Since we can prove that after a great 

 number of generations the former property 

 returns, we call that Pseudo-Inheritance. But 

 we must bear in mind that there is no sharp 

 distinction between pseudo-inheritance and real 

 inheritance. The latter can only be considered 

 as a pseudo-inheritance which lasts for an infinitely 

 great number of generations. Chemical pheno- 

 mena in this territory will certainly be discovered, 

 and perhaps will contribute much towards making 

 these difficult questions clearer. 



Phylogenetic investigations still contain many 



more interesting chemical questions than we could 



touch on in our short discussion. Well worth 



consideration is the question whether the so-called 



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