THE GERM-PLASM THEORY :;,;«, 



has been made in more recent times by Wiesner, De Vries, and 

 myself. In the meantime we can say nothing more definite about 

 the composition of these bearers of life, or ' biophors/ as I call them 

 than that albumen-molecules, water, salts, and some other Bubstanc 

 play the chief part in their composition. This has been found out by 

 analysis of dead protoplasm; but in what form these substances a 

 contained in the biophors, and how they affecl each other in ord 

 produce the phenomena of life by going through a ceaseless cycle of 

 disruptions and reconstructions, is still entirely hidden from us. 



We have, however, nothing to do with that here; * ntent 

 ourselves with recognizing in the biophors the characteristics of lil 

 and picturing to ourselves that all living substance, cell-substanc 

 and nuclear substance, muscle-, nerve-, and gland-substance, in all 

 their diverse forms, consist of biophors, though, of course, of the m< 

 varied composition. There must be innumerable kinds of biophors in 

 all the diverse parts of the millions of forms of lit'.' which now live 

 upon the earth ; but all must be constructed on a certain fundamental 



plan, which conditions their marvellous capacity for life : all p 



the fundamental characters of life — dissimilation, assimilation, growth, 

 and multiplication by division. We must also ascribe to them in 

 some degree the power of movement and sensibility. 



As to their size, we can only say that they are far below the 

 limits of visibility, and that even the minutest granules which we 

 can barely perceive by means of our most powerful microscop 

 cannot be small individual biophors, but must be aggregates of fches 

 On the other hand, the biophors must be larger than any chemical 

 molecule, because they themselves consist of a group of molecules 

 among which are some of complex composition, and therefore of 

 relatively considerable size. 



It may now be asked whether the determinants, whose existence 

 we have already inferred, are not identical with these ' biophors' or 

 smallest living particles; but that is not the case, at Least not 

 generally. We called determinants those pails of the germ-substance 

 which determine a 'hereditary character' of the body; that is, whos 

 presence in the germ determines that a particular part of tic body, 

 whether it consists of a group of cells, a single cell, or a part of a cell, 

 shall develop in a specific manner, and whose variations cause the 

 variations of these particular parts alone. 



Again, it may be asked how large and how numerous Buch 

 'hereditary parts' may be, whether they correspond to every distinct 

 part of a cell, or to every cell of the body, or only t<» the larger cell 

 groups. Obviously the areas which are individually determined from 



