150 Inadmissibility of Preformistic Germs 
germinal substance, even though it were as complex as 
one could imagine; and a germ substance which is hetero- 
geneous indeed but each of whose components would 
nevertheless commence to be active from the very first 
moment of development must be no less certainly 
excluded. 
On the other hand we ask: Is it in general possible to 
conceive, much less accept, these preformistic germs, of 
which each is set apart for some infinitesimal part of the 
body,—any part provided that it can vary independently 
of the others? Would the supposition of germs of this 
nature constitute any explanation whatever of this par- 
ticulate inheritance, or would this not rather be a pure 
and simple repetition in other words of the phenomenon 
which one pretends to explain? 
That is what we propose to consider very briefly in 
the following last section of this chapter. 
4. Inadmissibility of Preformistic Germs 
We note in advance that the independently variable 
and inheritable peculiarities of the organism are not 
limited merely to the form and structure of entire groups 
of cells, but can include even the chemical characters of 
each cell. One would arrive thus at the absurdity that 
not only each cell, as Darwin’s pangenesis already admits, 
but almost each molecule of the organism must have its 
representative in the germ plasm. 
Besides this material impossibility the idea of pre- 
formistic germs encounters insurmountable difficulties 
from the point of view of their conceivability. 
Is it a conceivable thing that there is for instance a 
preformistic germ of a certain nervous tic, or of a par- 
