170 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



another. I need only refer to the connection known to exist between connective- 

 tissue cells, cartilage cells, epithelial cells, etc. And not only may the cells of 

 one tissue be continuous with each other, but they may also be continuous with 

 the cells of other tissues" (pp. 47, 48). 



" Finally, if the protoplasm of the body is primitively a syncytium, 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 Protozoon, 

 and the inheritance by the offspring of peculiarities first appearing in the parent, 

 though not explained, i3 rendered less mysterious; for the protoplasm of the 

 whole body being continuous, change in the molecular constitution of any part of 

 it would naturally be expected to spread, in time, through the whole mass " (p. 49). 



Mr. Sedgwick's subsequent investigations confirm these con- 

 clusions. In a letter of December 27, 1892, passages, which he 

 allows me to publish, run as follows : 



" All the embryological studies that I have made since that to which you refer 

 confirm me more and more in the view that the connections between the cells of 

 adults are not secondary connections, but primary, dating from the time when 

 the embryo was a unicellular structure. . . . My own investigations on this sub- 

 ject have been confined to the Arthropoda, Elasmobranchii, and Aves. I have 

 thoroughly examined the development of at least one kind of each of these groups, 

 and I have never been able to detect a stage in which the cells were not continu- 

 ous with each other; and I have studied innumerable stages from the beginning 

 of cleavage onward." 



So that the alleged independence of the reproductive cells does 

 not exist. The soma — to use Weismann's name for the aggregate 

 of cells forming the body — is, in the words of Mr. Sedgwick, " a 

 continuous mass of vacuolated protoplasm " ; and the reproductive 

 cells are nothing more than portions of it separated some little 

 time before they are required to perform their functions. 



Thus the theory of Weismann is doubly disproved. Inductively 

 we are shown that there does take place that communication of 

 characters from the somatic cells to the reproductive cells, which 

 he says can not take place ; and deductively we are shown that 

 this communication is a natural sequence of connections between 

 the two which he ignores: his various conclusions are deduced 

 from a postulate which is untrue. 



From the title of this essay, and from much of its contents, 

 nine readers out of ten will infer that it is directed against the 

 views of Mr. Darwin. They will be astonished on being told that, 

 contrariwise, it is directed against the views of those who, in a 

 considerable measure, dissent from Mr. Darwin. For the inher- 

 itance of acquired characters, which it is now the fashion in the 

 biological world to deny, was, by Mr. Darwin, fully recognized 

 and often insisted on. Such of the foregoing arguments as touch 

 Mr. Darwin's views, simply imply that the cause of evolution 

 which at first he thought unimportant, but the importance of 



