Statement of Weismanris Sy stern (1886). 9 



metazoon or metaphyton an innumerable number of 

 these specialized cells are destined to perish during 

 the life, or with the death, of the organism to which 

 they belong, this is only due to the accident, so to 

 speak, of their contents not having met with their 

 complements in the opposite sex : it does not belong 

 to their essential nature that they should perish, seeing 

 that those which do happen to meet with their com- 

 plements in the opposite sex help to form a new living 

 individual, and so on through successive generations 

 ad infinitum. Therefore the reproductive elements 

 of the metazoa and metaphyta are in this respect 

 precisely analogous to the protozoa : potentially, or in 

 their own nature, they are immortal ; and, like the 

 protozoa, if they die, their death is an accident due to 

 unfavourable circumstances. But the case is quite 

 different with all the other parts of a multicellular 

 organism. Here, no matter how favourable the cir- 

 cumstances may be, every cell contains within itself, 

 or in its very nature, the eventual doom of death. 

 Thus, of the metazoa and metaphyta it is the 

 " germ-plasms " alone that retain their primitive 

 endowment of everlasting life, passed on continuously 

 through generation after generation of successively 

 perishing organisms. 



So far, it is contended, we are dealing with matters 

 of fact. It must be taken as true that the protoplasm 

 of the unicellular organisms, and the germ-plasm of the 

 multicellular organisms, has been continuous through 

 the time since life first appeared upon this earth ; and 

 although large quantities of each are perpetually dying 

 through being exposed to conditions unfavourable to 

 life, this, as Weismann presents the matter, is quite 



