34 HEREDlTr AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



say a few words concerning the source from wHcli tke deter- 

 minant energy is derived. We have seen that a distribution of 

 the ids takes place during the development ; that the id resolves 

 itself into its determinants, and the determinants into their 

 biophors ; and that the biophors penetrate into the various cells 

 to which they stand in definite relation, and that they determine 

 the structure and function of those cells. Weismann has con- 

 cluded that the developmental distribution of the ids takes place 

 along lines prescribed by the vital afi&nities of the biophors. 

 These vital affinities constitute a sum of forces between the 

 determinants which bind the latter together in the id, and which 

 give to the id the properties of assimilation and multiphcation. 

 Vital affinities in the organic world correspond to the chemical 

 affinities of the inorganic world. A molecule of inorganic matter 

 cannot multiply itself by division. In the case of an inorganic 

 molecule — e.g., of salt — division would mean the loss of those 

 properties which, by their combination, had produced the salt 

 molecule. It is characteristic of the living molecule, the biophor, 

 that it possesses the capacity of assimilation, growth, and mul- 

 tiplication by division, for the biophor is the elementary Hving 

 particle. We see the action of the vital affinities of the biophors, 

 consequently those of the determinants and the ids, during the 

 process of karyokinesis, in which the chromosomes in each suc- 

 cessive division are divided exactly into two halves ; a division 

 the accuracy of which is not determined by exterior forces, but 

 by purely internal ones. 



The same vital affinities which unite the biophors in the deter- 

 minant, the determinants in the id ; which enable these Uving 

 elements to assimilate, grow, and multiply; and which produce the 

 exact division of the chromosomes in the karyokinesis, preside 

 also over the distribution of the ids and the determinants in the 

 process of development. 



But the germ is composed, not of a single id, but of many. 

 The number of chromosomes or idants, each composed of many 



