142 An Examination of Weismannism. 



With regard to telegony, he adopts, almost pre- 

 cisely, the position which I surmised that he would. 

 That is to say, he first disputes the alleged facts, and 

 then argues that, even if they be facts, they admit of 

 being explained on the theory of germ-plasm by 

 supposing that some of the germ-plasm from the 

 first sire penetrates the unripe ova which are after- 

 wards fertilized by the second *. The only difference 

 between his views and my own upon this matter is, 

 therefore, as follows. 



Supposing that the phenomena alleged ever occur 

 in fact, I have said that the only way of explaining 

 them would seem to be, t: that the life of ' germ-plasm ' 

 is not conterminous with that of the spermatozoa which 

 convey it, and hence that, if the carriers of heredity, 

 after the disintegration of their containing sperma- 

 tozoa, should ever penetrate an unripe ovum, the 

 germ-plasm thus introduced might remain dormant 

 in the ovum until the latter becomes mature, and is 

 then fertilized by another sire. In this way it is con- 

 ceivable that the hitherto dormant germ-plasm of the 

 previous sire might exercise some influence on the 

 ontogeny of the embryo -." 



Now. this is substantially the position which Weis- 

 mann takes up ; only instead of supposing that it is 

 the " carriers of heredity " of the first sire which gain 

 access to the unripe ovum " after the disintegration 

 of their containing spermatozoa." he supposes that it 

 is one of the spermatozoa which does so before its 

 disintegration has commenced. Of course there is 

 here no difference in principle, but only a question 

 touching the mode in which the access is presumably 



1 The Germ-plasm t pp. 3S3-386. 2 Quoted from above, p. 78. 



