THE INADEQUACY OF "NATURAL SELECTION" 169 



stration that the somewhat different units of a foreign germ -plasm 

 permeating the organism, permeate also the subsequently-formed 

 reproductive cells, and affect the structures of the individuals 

 arising from them, the implication is that the like happens with 

 those native units which have been made somewhat different by 

 modified functions: there must be a tendency to inheritance of 

 acquired characters. 



One more step only has to be taken. It remains to ask what is 

 the flaw in the assumption with which Weismann's theory sets 

 out. If, as we see, the conclusions drawn from it do not corre- 

 spond to the facts, then, either the reasoning is invalid, or the 

 original postulate is untrue. Leaving aside all questions concern- 

 ing the reasoning, it will suffice here to show the untruth of the 

 postulate. Had his work been written during the early years of 

 the cell-doctrine, the supposition that the multiplying cells of 

 which the Metazoa and the Metaphyta are composed, become com- 

 pletely separate, could not have been met by a reasonable skepti- 

 cism ; but now, not only is skepticism justifiable, but denial is 

 called for. Some dozen years ago it was discovered that in many 

 cases vegetal cells are connected with one another by threads of 

 protoplasm — threads which unite the internal protoplasm of one 

 cell with the internal protoplasms of cells around. It is as though 

 the pseudopodia of imprisoned rhizopods were fused with the 

 pseudopodia of adjacent imprisoned rhizopods. We can not reason- 

 ably suppose that the continuous network of protoplasm thus con- 

 stituted has been produced after the cells have become adult. 

 These protoplasmic connections must have survived the process 

 of fission. The implication is that the cells forming the embryo- 

 plant retained their protoplasmic connections while they multi- 

 plied, and that such connections continued throughout all subse- 

 quent multiplications — an implication which has, I believe, been 

 established by researches upon germinating palm-seeds. But now 

 we come to a verifying series of facts which the cell-structures 

 of animals in their early stages present. In his Monograph of 

 the Development of Peripatus Capensis, Mr. Adam Sedgwick, 

 F. R. S., Reader in Animal Morphology at Cambridge, writes as 

 follows : — 



"All the cells of the ovum, ectodermal as well as endodermal, are connected 

 together by a fine protoplasmic reticulum " (p. 41). 



" The continuity of the various cells of the segmenting ovum is primary, and 

 not secondary; i.e., in the cleavage the segments do not completely separate 

 from one another. But are we justified in speaking of cells at all in this case? 

 The fully segmented ovum is a syncytium, and there are not and have not teen at 

 any stage cell limits' 1 '' (p. 41). 



" It is becoming more and more clear every day that the cells composing the 

 tissues of animals are not isolated units, but that they are connected with one 



