176 The American Naturalist. [February, 
ment of the individual, and, in the history of a species, and have a tend- 
-ency to differentiate in series. The presence of series it was therefore, 
argued is no evidence of the transmission of acquired characters. 
An elaborate presentation of the two theories of the primal unit of 
life was entered into, detailing first the views of investigators who re- 
garded the start as a small, discrete, homogenous particle gifted with 
-considerable locomotive power, and thus capable of conveying impres- 
sions from the outside of the subject to the more remote precincts of the 
germ within. Opposed to these were theories to which the speaker ad- 
hered, which assumed the unit to be the cell, relatively large, of a 
various chemical constituency and with something of an organization. 
‘The first of these two theories permitted the further step of assumption 
that acquired impressions could, by the greater facility in movement, 
reach the germ, while the second theory found the germ rather re- 
moved from outside impressions, and tending generally to perpetuating 
the type or the result of accretions from a long previous series of ex- 
-periences and impressions. Prof. Minot was.thus opposed to the idea 
-of transmission as defined in the question. 
Prof. J. M. McFarlane was in favor of the theory of transmission, 
‘drawing his data from botanical studies in an exhaustive review of the 
vegetable kingdom. His arguments were directed mainly to examples 
of changes in genera and species from changes in environment, and a 
-lot of evidence was adduced having some relation to the transmission 
of acquired characters, but mainly to showing the prompt response in 
‘mature to the influence of surroundings. 
Prof. Cope’s defence of the doctrine of the inheritance of acquired 
characters was selected from the evidence contained in his book, “ The 
Primary Factors of Organic Evolution.” He referred especially to the 
history of the moulding of the articulations of the vertebrate, and espe- 
cially the Mammalian skeletons, of which such complete series has been 
furnished by paleontology. The forms of these articulations he believed 
to be the result of their movements, for the reason that they could be 
formed artificially as the result of experiment, or in consequence of 
luxations. He believed that the resulting forms have been inherited, 
because they are found in the embryo, before the animal has had an 
opportunity of developing the structure for himself by interaction with 
the environment. 
He admitted the justice of Dr: Minot’s demand for an explanation 
of this phenomenon. He stated that the preformationists offered no 
explanation ; and, indeed, so far as he could see, none is possible from 
their point of view. The epigeuesisists could, on the contrary, appeal 
