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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. X LVII I 



tacit assumption that the soma is governed by different 

 laws from the living matter which makes up the germ 

 plasm from which it arose. In other words it is assumed 

 that the germ plasm is so different from the soma that 

 the discovery of laws governing the soma is a type of 

 investigation of relatively little significance. 



Some criterion of values is of course necessary in sci- 

 ence as well as eNewhere, and for the sake of argument we 

 would be willing to accept the second when broadly stated 

 and the first when broadened and modified so as to accord 

 with the second as appears to be the case among certain 

 students of genetics. In other words, problems of the 

 germ cells, the egg, and heredity, are of much importance 

 when the germ cells themselves are regarded as dynamic 

 and in their relations to the dynamics of the organism 

 as a whole. 



Granting that these are true and tenable criteria of 

 values in present-day biological science, what is to be the 

 method of application? Should biology demand that 

 results be of direct application to these " central" prob- 

 lems? One has but to look at the history of almost any 

 branch of science to find that great, if not the greatest, 

 advances have come through following up results at 

 points where relations to the central problems of the 

 period were quite unsuspected, or by the transference 

 of methods, principles and results from one field to an- 

 other where relations between the two were not suspected. 

 Take, for example, immunity and immunization, the his- 

 tory of which is ably sketched by Adami ( '08, pp. 451- 

 528) . It has been known for ages that one attack of many 

 infectious diseases yields more or less complete immunity 

 from subsequent attacks. Thus for centuries in India 

 and the East individuals, chiefly children, have been pur- 

 posely inoculated with matter or by contact. The prac- 

 tise grew out of experience showing that diseases thus 

 communicated to healthy individuals from weaker ones 

 are less severe. In 1796 the results of Jenner on vaccina- 

 tion with cowpox were published. This may have influ- 



