8 
TRANSACTIONS OF THE TEXAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
production of organic beings is due to a process of veritable evolution, 
to a gradual unfolding of what is originally and exclusively inherent in 
the germ-plasm itself, and nowise to anything that has got into it from 
without. 
It is easy to perceive to what extremely divergent consequences these 
opposite views of reproduction must necessarily lead. In the one in¬ 
stance we have development mainly through direct functional, and 
eventually consciously aimful, interaction of the entire organism with 
the manifold influences of its enviroments. In the other instance we 
have, either development altogether by means of fortuitous variations 
of the germ-plasm, upon which the vital labor of the organism as a whole 
exerts no influence whatever; or, in case the variations are held, not to 
be fortuitous, but aimfully preconcerted in the primordial germ-plasm, 
we and all other living beings have to be regarded as petalistically in¬ 
volved in a process of predestined evolution, which no vital activity on 
our part can influence in the least degree. 
Now to whatever scientific decision we may ultimately arrive as to 
the great burning question of the transmission or non-transmission of 
individually acquired structural modifications and their functional out¬ 
comes, it is certain that the foundation of Weismann’s particular theory 
has recently been effectively overthrown. It has, namely, been posi¬ 
tively demonstrated, that it is not the nuclear substance of the cell; but, 
on the contrary, the substance of the cell itself, that initiates and controls 
the process of division, and therewith reproduction in general. Of this 
not the slightest doubt remains. It has been established by verifiable 
proof on the testimony of such foremost investigators as Strasburger 1 
and Guignard 3 on the part of botanists; as Van Beneden, 3 Boveri, 4 
Fol, 5 and many others on the part of zoologists. And even Flemming, 6 
who had been a strong advocate of the nuclear view, has lately been 
forced to arrive at the same conclusion. And I may be allowed to add, 
that I was among the first to interpret fissiparous division in this extra- 
nuclear sense. 7 I had distinctly observed the occurrence in the case of a 
1 E. Strasburger: Ueber Zellbildung unci Zelltheilung, 3d Aufl. Jena, 1880. 
2 L. Guignard: Sur l’existence des spheres attractive dans les cellules des vege- 
taux. Comptes rendus. Acad. Sci., Paris, 1891. 
3 E. van Beneden: Recherclies sur la maturation de 1'oeuf, la fecondation et la 
division cellulaire. Gand et Leipzig, 1883. 
4 T. Boveri: Zellen-Studien. .Jenaische Zeitschrift fiir Naturwissenschaft,vol. 
22,1S88. 
5 H. Fol: Die Centrenquadrille.” Ana. Anz., 1S91. Jen. Zeit. fiir Naturw., 
vol. 7, 1873. 
6 W. Flemming: Ueber Zelltheilung. Verhandl. der Ana. Gesellschaft,Miin- 
chen, 1891. 
7 E. Montgomery: Ueber das Protoplasma einiger Elementarorganismen. 
Jen. Zeitschrift fiir Naturwissenschaft, vol. xviii, page 677. 
