﻿42 Darwin, and after Darwin. 



the second place, our judgement upon this question 

 of fact must be largely influenced by the validity of 

 general reasonings, such as those put forward in the 

 interests of rival theories of heredity ; and, as the 

 theory of germ-plasm has been so thoughtfully 

 elaborated by Professor Weismann, I have sought to 

 give it the attention which it deserves as preliminary 

 to our discussion of the question of fact which now lies 

 before us. Thirdly and lastly, even if this question 

 could be definitely answered by proving either that 

 acquired characters are inherited or that they are not, 

 it would by no means follow that Weismann's theory 

 of heredity would be proved wholly false in the one 

 case, or wholly true in the other. That it need not 

 be wholly true, even were its fundamental postulate to 

 be proved so, is evident, because, although the fact 

 might be taken to prove the theory of Continuity, the 

 theory of Germ-plasm is, as above stated, very much 

 more than this. That the theory of Germ-plasm 

 need not be wholly false, even if acquired characters 

 should ever be proved heritable, a little thought may 

 easily show, because, in this event, the further question 

 would immediately arise as to the degrees and the 

 comparative frequency of such inheritance. For my 

 own part, as stated in the Examination, I have always 

 been disposed to accept Mr. Galton's theory of Stirp 

 in preference to that of Germ-plasm on this very 

 ground — i. e. that it does not dogmatically exclude the 

 possibility of an occasional inheritance of acquired 

 characters in faint though cumulative degrees. And 

 whatever our individual opinions may be touching the 

 admissibility of such a via media between the theories 

 of Pangenesis and Germ-plasm, at least we may all 



