112 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 



the personal part to the germinal part retains its force, notwithstanding 

 Bering's interesting analogy. 



If the transmission of functional modifications were an indisputable 

 fact, I repeat, we should have to give in, and then we might regard 

 the 'memory of organized material' as affording a hint of the pos- 

 sibility of the unimaginable process. But as long as the occurrence of 

 this transmission cannot be proved either directly or indirectly, such 

 a vague possibility of explanation need not induce us to assume 

 an unproved process. 



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