Dec., 1903.] Transmission of Acquired Characters. 
27 
We may sum up these stimuli as nutritive, respirator}’, mechani- 
cal, thermic, perhaps electrical and finally, what some will have — 
a stimulus due to irritability, a virtual vital force. Now one 
school holds that there is no connection or direct communication 
between germ cell and body cell,* while another says there is and 
has shown that there is a possible means of communication by 
certain protoifiasmic bridges tha't are known to occur at least in 
some cases. It is obvious what application this has to the sub- 
ject in hand. The germ-cell in the multicellular forms, located 
as it is deep in the tissues of the body and away from the sur- 
roundings of the organism to which it belongs, may react in one 
of two ways: it may react to simply the stimuli given by the cells 
immediately surrounding it or to this phis an effect induced by 
something such as a nervous force, as was mentioned as a possi- 
ble means of communication between more distant cells. The 
existence of such a force is not countenanced by modern biolo- 
gists and it is useless to follow the theme longer. This leaves us 
with but the hypothesis of Darwin which he termed that of Pan- 
genesis. Darwin early saw the necessity of .some such hypothe- 
sis, if acquired characters are inherited, in accounting for a means 
of communication between the body-cells and the germ-cells. In 
place of a subtle force, Darwin postulated an actual material 
transmission of a portion of the body-cell to the germ-cell. He 
assumed protoplasm to be compo.sed of pangens or corpuscles and 
that these might pass from cell to cell carrying with them the 
characters, hereditary and acquired, of the cell from which they 
came. The pangens migrate from the body-cell to the germ-cell 
and becoming resident there, are tramsmitted to the offspring, in 
which they pass to the .several parts of the body, thus reproduc- 
ing the form of the parent. An acquired character could thus be 
inherited. From other considerations Darwin was led to believe 
strongly in the transmission of acquired characters and it is a 
mark of far.sightedne.ss on his part when he saw the necessity of 
some such hypothe.sis, and met it. It is well to note in passing 
that tl'.e .so-called Neo- Darwinians are more Darwinian than the 
man himself, paradoxical as it may .seem. Darwin believed, and 
that strongly, in the transmission of the direct effects of environ- 
ment and attempted to explain it, and it is only his followers 
that have dropped it from the creed. 
So much, then, for the a priori condition of the subject. We 
have seen that in unicellular forms, acquired characters are 
iidierited and that in so far, in multicellular forms, as we can 
treat the germ-cell as a single cell, and apart from the somatic 
• Tlieterm “germ-cell'’ is meant to desigate such cells as reproduce the parent form 
—all other cells being “ body cells.” Obviou.sly the arginuent which was originally 
applied to .sex-cells will apply to cases of vegetative reproduction equally well, as in cases 
of budding, spores, polyembryony, etc. 
