230 Theories Treating of Inheritance 
Sedgwick 
This investigator deduces the possibility of the in- 
heritance of acquired characters from his conception that 
the pluricellular organism is simply a great syncytium. 
“Tf the protoplasm of the body is essentially a syncy- 
tium and the ovum until maturity a part of that 
syncytium, the separation of the generative products does 
not differ essentially from the internal gemmation of a 
protozoan, and the inheritance by the offspring of pecul- 
iarities first appearing in the parent, though not ex- 
plained, is rendered less mysterious; for the protoplasm 
of the whole body being continuous, we must naturally be 
inclined to think that every change in the molecular con- 
stitution of any parts of it would naturally be expected 
to spread in time, through the whole mass.” 1% 
This conception which recalls somewhat Naegeli’s 
idea of an idioplasmic network, extending its meshes 
throughout the whole body, though it gives a hint of the 
possible mechanism of inheritance by means of this proto- 
plasmic continuity, nevertheless does not give even the 
most vague and remote notion of the nature of this 
mechanism. 
Bard 
According to this author the cells participate in onto- 
genetic development in two ways. The first way is by 
their specific division or qualitative nuclear division, as 
in Weismann’s theory of preformistic germs. The second 
rests upon a special action of the germ cells upon the 
somatic cells, acting indeed at a distance but nevertheless 
Adam Sedgwick: The Development of the Cape Species of 
Peripatus. Quart. Journ. of Microscopical Sc. Vol. XXVI. 1886: 
P. 206. 
