218 The American Naturalist. [March, 
Romanes" says, in revising the opinions of Weismann, “(1) 
Germ Plasm ceases to be continuous in the sense of having 
borne a perpetual record of congenital variations from the 
first origin of sexual propagation. (2) On the contrary, as all 
such variations have been originated by the direct action of external 
conditions” (italics mine) “the continuity of the germ plasm 
in this sense has been interrupted at the commencement of 
every inherited change during the phylogeny of all plants 
and animals, unicellular as well as multicellular. (3) But 
germ plasm remains continuous in the restricted though 
highly important sense of being the sole repository of heredi- 
tary characters of each successive generation, so that acquired 
characters can never have been transmitted to progeny, ‘ rep- 
resentatively,’ even though they have frequently caused those 
‘specialized’ changes in the structure of the germ plasm, 
which, as we have seen, must certainly have been of consider- 
able importance in the history of organic evolution.” 
Here the inheritance of characters acquired by the soma 18 
admitted, and the process is after the method of Diplogenesis. 
According to Romanes, Galton originally propounded this doc- 
trine. Galton’s language” is as follows: 
“Tt is said that the structure of an animal changes when he 
is placed under changed conditions; that his offspring inherit 
some of his change, and that they vary still further on their 
own account, in the same direction, and so on through succes- 
sive generations until a notable change in the congenital char- 
acteristics of the race has been effected. Hence, it is con- 
cluded that a change in the personal structure has reacted on 
the sexual elements, For my part, I object to so general a 
conclusion for the following reasons. It is universally 
admitted that the primary agents in the processes of growt®, 
nutrition and reproduction, are the same, and that a true the- 
ory of heredity must so regard them. In other words, they 
are all due to the development of some germinal matter varl- 
ously located. Consequently, when similar germinal -a 
is everywhere affected by the same conditions, we sho 
"An Examination of Weismannism, Chicago, 1892, p. 169. 
“Contemporary Review, 1875, pp. 343-4; Proceeds. Royal Soc., 1872, no. 136. 
