proof of the occasional transmission of
mutilations would be sufficient to establish the fact, but on p. 267 we
find that no single fact is known which really proves that acquired
characters can be transmitted, "_for the ascertained facts which seem to
point to the transmission of artificially produced diseases cannot be
considered as proof_" [Italics mine.] Perhaps; but it was mutilation in
many cases that Professor Weismann practically admitted to have been
transmitted when he declared that Obersteiner had verified
Brown-Sequard's experiments.

That Professor Weismann recognises the vital importance to his own theory
of the question whether or no mutilations can be transmitted under any
circumstances, is evident from a passage on p. 425 of his work, on which
he says: "It can hardly be doubted that mutilations are acquired
characters; they do not arise from any tendency contained in the germ,
but are merely the reaction of the body under certain external
influences. They are, as I have recently expressed it, purely
somatogenic characters--viz., characters which emanate from the body
(_soma_) only, as opposed to the germ-cells; they are, therefore,
characters that do not arise from the germ itself.

"If mutilations must necessarily be transmitted" [which no one that I
know of has maintained], "or even if they might occasionally be
transmitted" [which cannot, I imagine, be reasonably questioned], "a
powerful support would be given to the Lamarckian principle, and the
transmission of functional hypertrophy or atrophy would thus become
highly probable."

I have not found any further attempt in Professor Weismann's book to deal
with the evidence adduced by Mr. Darwin to show that mutilations, if
followed by diseases, are sometimes inherited; and I must leave it to the
reader to determine how far Professor Weismann has shown reason for
rejecting Mr. Darwin's conclusion. I do not, however, dwell upon these
facts now as evidence of a transmitted change of bodily form, or of
instinct due to use and disuse or habit; what they prove is that the germ-
cells within the parent's body do not stand apart from the other cells of
the body so completely as Professor Weismann would have us believe, but
that, as Professor Hering, of Prague, has aptly said, they echo with more
or less frequency and force to the profounder impressions made upon other
cells.

I may say that Professor Weismann does not more cavalierly wave aside the
ma