114 DEVELOPMENT AND HEREDITY. 



that associative property of protoplasm which we 

 have discussed in the previous chapter, the reactions 

 to stimuli, i.e. the growth or development, take place 

 the second time more easily and more rapidly than 

 the first time. Therefore, during the second cycle 

 of life, this unbroken continuity of protoplasm, which 

 now forms the second generation, would form its co- 

 ordinations more easily and more rapidly. The re- 

 actions and co-ordinations of the first organism have 

 left their impress upon the protoplasm, and this 

 impress affects the development of the second gen- 

 eration. In the third and fourth and every succeed- 

 ing generation we have a repetition of the entire 

 process of development. This repetition tends to 

 perfect the process of development, — to make it 

 occur more rapidly and more easily. It tends to 

 combine the reactions which we call growth and 

 development in an indissoluble chain of association ; 

 and it tends also to make those reactions always the 

 same. 



The same permanent external forces acting upon 

 an organism affect it differently at different periods 

 in the development of the organism ; for, though the 

 forces themselves remain the same, they will neces- 

 sarily produce different results in the organism as 

 the size of the latter increases and as the complexity 

 of its co-ordinations increases, i.e. as the internal 



