Independence of Hereditary Peculiarities 147 
“Experiments upon the production of varieties teaches 
us further that nearly every peculiarity can vary inde- 
pendently of the others. Many varieties in fact diverge 
from their stock form by only a single character; for in- 
stance the white blooming variety of a species with red 
flowers. In the same way the villosity, the armanent of 
spines or thorns, the green color of leaves, each of these 
characters can vary by itself and can even disappear en- 
tirely, and all the other hereditary properties remain 
perfectly unaltered.” 
It follows that: “The hereditary anlagen, of which 
the hereditary peculiarities are the visible signs, are inde- 
pendents units which may have had their origin at differ- 
ent epochs, and which may also be lost independently. 
They are miscible with one another in almost all propor- 
tions, since each peculiarity can pass through all inter- 
mediate degrees from its complete absence to its greatest 
development.” 
“Independence and miscibility, these are the essential 
properties of the hereditary anlagen of all organisms.” 1+ 
Quite similar to this argument of DeVries is that of 
Weismann in favor of his preformation or of preformistic 
germs in general: “It is impossible for one part of the 
body to vary independently of the others, and for these 
variations to be hereditary, if it is not represented in the 
germ plasm by a special particle, a variation of which in- 
duces a corresponding variation of the part in question. 
If this were represented, together with other parts of the 
body, by a single particle of the germ plasm, then a 
change of this latter would have as its consequence the 
variation of all the parts which are determined by it. In 
121De Vries: Intracellulare Pangenesis. Jena, Fischer, 1889. P. 
89, 17, 32, 33. English Translation by C. Stuart Gager. Open 
Court Publishing Co. 1910. 
