146 A Homogeneous Germ Substance Inadmissible 
different characters of the organism, is quite similar to 
that of Galton. It is summed up in the following passages 
from his book: “Many species of plants,’ writes he, 
“have the power of producing definite chemical com- 
pounds: among the most important of these are the red 
and blue coloring substances of flowers: also the various 
tannic acids, the alkaloids, the etherial oils, and numer- 
ous other products. A small number only of these com- 
pounds are limited to a single species of plants: a large 
number are present in two or more species, systematically 
far removed from one another. There is no reason to 
believe that there is a different mode of production of the 
same compound in each particular case: on the contrary 
one would naturally expect the same compound, in what- 
ever place one meets it, to be produced always by the 
same chemical mechanism.” 
“Similarly we must admit the possibility of a break- 
ing down of the morphologic signs of species. Morphol- 
ogy is clearly not yet far enough advanced to permit of 
such an analysis in each particular case. But the same 
coarse or fine notching at the leaf margins are repeated 
in numerous species and the customary terminology in- 
forms us in advance that all forms of leaf patterns are 
composed of a relatively small number of more simple 
characters.” 
“This shows that the character of each individual 
species is made up of numerous hereditary peculiarities of 
which the most part are present also in an almost infinite 
number of other species. * * * According to this 
view, we would regard each species as an extremely com- 
plicated figure, and the organic world in its entirety as the 
result of innumerable different permutations and com- 
binations of a relatively small number of factors.” 
