Interpretation of Facts 163 



has not yet been proved that one can either change or add anything to 

 them, unless, again it be merely the food and drink he takes which may 

 or may not nourish such sex-cell properly. 



This means, then, that just as with Paramoecia, each and every 

 one of us cannot obtain from our parents one more particle of physical, 

 emotional, or mental ability than our parents may have had, because we 

 get only what was present in the egg-cell of our mothers and the sperm- 

 cell of our fathers. 



It means further, that when we go back even twenty-five genera- 

 tions, considering our two parents, four grandparents, eight great- 

 grandparents, etc., we are related in actual blood-relationship to more 

 people than there are in the world at the present time. It means that 

 just as Paramoecia are really their grandparents and all their ancestors 

 in one, so we are also actually and truly our own ancestors in so far as 

 our sex-cells are concerned. 



An actual living particle of every one of our forefathers is really 

 present in each one of us. It means that the entire animal world, in- 

 cluding the human family, by constant intermingling of chromosomes, 

 is always tending toward an average, so that no matter how many cen- 

 turies elapse, no real, individual, physical, or biological progress is 

 possible. Always will the next succeeding generation, or at least the 

 next after that, have some sex-cells in their bodies which will again pro- 

 duce an average being. 



This sex-bridge which connects every human being with every 

 other human being in this way, is sometimes referred to as the Weis- 

 mannian bridge. It is this bridge which is both the hope of an oppressed 

 people and the despair of those who would change human nature from 

 what it is. We can build only upon instincts and on human desires and 

 wishes which are in turn the result of the instincts we were born with. 

 We may develop such instincts and desires, but no actual change in 

 human nature can possibly ever come into existence. Human nature 

 is the same now as it has ever been and always must be, until some 

 method be obtained by which we can tell in advance by looking at a 

 chromosome, what good and bad characteristics such chromosome con- 

 tains, and then be able to destroy the bad therein. This means that 

 we are aeons and aeons removed from any solution to our eugenic prob- 

 lem on a truly scientific basis. Even then, were we able to accomplish 

 this practically impossible task, we should still have to evolve some plan 

 by which we could see the egg and the sperm before they unite, a task 

 again practically impossible until new human beings can be grown in 

 the laboratory. 



Professor Weismann also demonstrated to the scientific world that 

 the germ-plasm early separates from that part which is to become the 

 outer portion of the body and which is called the somatoplasm. 



The Abbott Mendel has proved that no matter how much inter- 



