1894.] The Energy of Evolution. 217 
it is most probable, find a stronger echo in the germinal vesi- 
cles than elsewhere.” i 
It is evident that evolutionists are reaching greater harmony 
of opinions on the question of inheritance, for both sides are 
adopting the doctrine of Diplogenesis. In fact, the discussion 
is beginning to be a logomachy dependent on the significance 
which one attaches to the term, “ acquired characters.” Thus, 
Vom Rath, who says he does not believe in the inheritance” of 
acquired characters, remarks: “there is nothing in the way 
of the opinion that by the continual working of such external 
influences and stimuli, the molecular structure of the germ- 
plasma also experiences a change which can lead to a trans- 
mission of transformations. Above all, it ought not to be for- 
gotten in this case that the somatic cells are in no way the first 
to be modified by the stimulus, ‘and that then by some sort of 
unexplained process (pangenesis or intercellular pangenesis) 
this stimulus is transmitted. generally by these cells to the 
plasma of the germ cells. The influence on the germ-plasma 
is rather a direct one, and if by continued influence a trans- 
formation of the structure of this plasma takes place and 
transmission occurs, we have then simply a transmission of 
blastogenic and by no means of somatogenic characters, and 
therein is not the slightest admission of the transmission of 
acquired characters.” 
This surprising paragraph contains an admission of the 
doctrine of Diplogenesis, and does not regard the phenomena 
as including a transmission of acquired characters. Never- 
theless, the stimuli traverse the soma in order to reach the 
germ plasma. Such an energy is evidently then not of blasto- 
genic origin, although it is such in its effects. Moreover, Vom 
Rath omits to mention the fact that in traversing the soma, the 
stimulus frequently, if not always, produces effects on the lat- 
ter similar to those which it produces on the germ plasma. I 
should call this process the inheritance of an acquired char- 
acter, even in the case where no corresponding modification 
appears in the soma, since the causative energy is acquired by 
the soma, and is not derived from the existing germ plasma. 
Berichte der Naturforsch. Gessel. zu Freiburg Baden. Bd. VI, H. 3. 
