702 Sargant.—Recent Work on the Results 
IV. Nature of the Triple Nuclear Fusion. 
The fourth and last question to be dealt with is whether 
the fusion of the second generative nucleus with the two 
polar nuclei can be considered as a true act of fertilization. 
The expression fertilization may bo used in an abstract or 
a concrete sense. In the abstract it denotes the process by 
which characters from two individuals are transmitted to 
a single organism in the succeeding generation. This 
phenomenon is almost universal throughout the animal and 
vegetable kingdoms, and its effects have been observed by 
many successive generations of breeders both of animals and 
of plants. In this way a considerable body of evidence has 
accumulated, and it has been found that certain laws are 
universally true of organisms which thus spring from a double 
stock. Such an organism passes through its complete life- 
history, which may include more than one cycle of develop¬ 
ment. It exhibits a combination of characters drawn from 
both parents. The offspring of the same pair differ from 
each other: some resemble one parent, some the other, and 
those of mixed appearance may lean to either side. But 
a balance is maintained in each generation between the two 
stocks, so that neither parent has on the whole greater weight 
than the other. 
Two features may be commonly distinguished in the 
abstract conception of the process of fertilization : the union 
of the characters of both parents, at the same time that 
a certain balance is maintained between them, and the 
impulse to further development impressed on members of the 
younger generation (Strasburger, 11, pp. 304 - 6 ; R. Hertwig, 
23 a, p. 149 ). The combination and balance of parental 
qualities has been happily called ‘ amphimixis ’ by Weismann 
(45, pp. 20 and 232 ). 
In many unicellular organisms, no special stimulus to 
development seems to accompany the act of conjugation 
(Weismann, 45, p. 232 ; R. Hertwig, 23 a, p. 146 ). But among 
the higher plants, with which alone we are concerned at 
