Delage 263 
ductive cells as the only cells endowed with unsomatized 
memory, and consequently as the only ones which would 
be likewise capable of preserving more or less com- 
pletely the memory of past generations. Nevertheless 
he should in our opinion have limited this equalization 
with the reproductive cells to those nerve cells which 
are least differentiated. 
Delage 
According to Delage, “The egg is like a star thrown 
out by an initial force into the midst of a system of 
stars in movement. Its trajectory will be influenced and 
determined by all the stars whose sphere of action it 
traverses, but nevertheless, if anything had been altered 
in its mass or in its initial movement, it would not have 
been what it is. It is not dependent on the system alone 
nor is it at any point independent of it. Every other 
similar mass thrown out at the same point, with the 
same force in the same direction will reproduce a tra- 
jectory identical with its own; but every difference even 
the most minute, in any one of these three factors will 
be able to induce considerable differences in the form 
of this curve.” 197 
This comparison leaves the repetition of phylogeny 
by ontogeny and the inheritance of acquired characters 
out of consideration. 
The inheritance of acquired characters is nevertheless 
accepted in part at least hy Delage, who explains it thus: 
“When a new chemical compound introduced into the 
organism produces different effects at different points, 
that is undoubtedly due to this, that it finds at each 
1s7Delage: L’hérédité etc. P. 802—803. 
