238 Theories Treating of Inheritance 
cessive phylogenetic states; he appears sometimes to 
exclude, sometimes to accept it. 
If he accepts this heaping up, the explanation of the 
inheritance of acquired characters which the hypothesis 
of biogenesis could give would be reduced to this: 
The uniform modification into which are summed up 
during their extension throughout the whole body the 
different transformations in the idioplasmic nuclear sub- 
stance that are brought about in consequence of the 
acquisition of new local characters is added to the 
preceding phylogenetic modifications without altering 
them, but merely reducing them to the potential state. 
Then in the next following ontogeny, when the required 
stage of development is attained, and this recently ac- 
quired idioplasmic modification becomes active in its turn, 
it induces the same general state of the body as was 
induced in the parent as a result of the acquisition of new 
local characters, and this general state, because of the 
reversibility of the relation between action and reaction, 
tends to bring about the formation of this character once 
again. 
But one must not be deceived even by this. Even 
supposing this to be the explanation that the biogenetic 
hypothesis could afford for the inheritance of acquired 
characters, it would consist rather in mere words than in 
ideas. For, as we have said above, this supposed summing 
up of all these different, simultaneous, local variations 
into a single idioplasmic modification, including them all 
and uniform for the entire organism, lacks not only any 
basis in fact but also any possibility of conception. And 
the following questions remain unanswered: In what 
do these different general states of the idioplasm consist ? 
In what way do some come to be added to the others 
