RECORDS. 383 



some, or by a combination of chromosomes, or whether this 

 may vary in different cases. In this direction we have taken but 

 the first uncertain steps towards a new horizon of discovery. 

 But the point I wish to emphasize is that if we admit such a dis- 

 tribution of characters among the chromosomes in any measure 

 and in any form, to just this extent have we admitted the prin- 

 ciple of preformation as appHed to the nuclear substance or idio- 

 plasm. To this extent do we admit, for example, that the 

 physical basis of inheritance in a frog's egg is not simply a 

 frog-detGvmimng substance, but is, in close analogy with Bonnet's 

 conception, a kind of original preformation or microcosm, in 

 which the individual frog-characters are in some unknown manner 

 represented by corresponding chromosome-characters. We can 

 hardly imagine at present how this is possible ; and it must be 

 freely admitted that such a conclusion has an appearance of 

 artificiality and crudeness that almost inevitably creates a certain 

 feeling of scepticism. Nevertheless, to a conclusion similar in 

 principle to this the facts seem to be pretty definitely pointing. 

 And now, finally, let us see how this conception, if accepted, 

 is to be united with that of specific protoplasmic stuffs, as already 

 outlined. We do not know in any positive way, but we may 

 roughly present the facts to our minds by a kind of artificial 

 hypothesis — somewhat as Ehrlich and his followers endeavor 

 to present the side-chain theory of immunity by means of rough 

 and crude diagrams. Let us assume, for example, that the 

 specific protoplasmic stuffs are formed one after another by 

 means of substances like enzymes that emanate from correspond- 

 ing chromosomes.^ Putting the matter in the sharpest and 

 crudest way, let us assume that each of the chromosomes in our 

 diagram is responsible for the formation of the stuff correspond- 

 ingly shaded. A few of these stuffs, formed and distributed as 

 the egg ripens, determine the initial stages of development. In 

 later stages other stuffs are formed by other chromosomes and 

 progressively distributed to the cells by division. Thus the 

 cleavage-mosaic grows progressively more complex and definite 

 as development advances. Each nucleus still contains the germ 



^ C/. Driesch's "Ferment Fiktion," Analyt. Theorie, pp. 87-92. 



