y
('germ-plasm') is taken to be a substance _per se_, which has always
occupied a special 'sphere' of its own, without any contact with that
of 'somatoplasm' further than is required for its lodgement or
nutrition; hence it can never be in any degree modified as to its
hereditary qualities by use-inheritance. It has been absolutely
continuous 'since the first origin of life.'

But this doctrine does not appear yet to have assumed a fixed form[7];
and in its extreme or absolute form it is highly disputable, and
rejected by large sections of biologists. Professor Haeckel[8]
declares contemptuously that he should feel it more reasonable to
accept the Mosaic account of special creations! The late Mr. Romanes,
after summing up the evidence on both sides without any contempt,
decides: 'No one is thus far entitled to conclude against the possible
transmission of acquired characters[9].' Again, 'that this substance
of heredity is largely continuous and highly stable, I see many and
cogent reasons for believing. But that this substance has been
uninterruptedly continuous since the origin of life, or absolutely
stable since the origin of sexual propagation, I see even more and
better reasons for disbelieving[10].' And he remarks[11], 'I doubt not
Weismann {227} himself would be the first to allow that his theory of
heredity encounters greater difficulties in the domain of ethics than
in any other--unless indeed, it be that of religion.'

I ought to add, in view of the apparently improbable event of the
doctrine of Weismann becoming in its absolute form the accepted
doctrine of biologists, that of course it only concerns the material
organism. No one who is not a materialist would deny the _possibility_
of the character of the parent modifying at its very root that of the
child, without even the smallest conceivable modification of the
physical organism; because in the origination of a spiritual
personality, and in the link which binds it to the antecedent
personalities to which it owes its being, there is that which lies
outside the purview of biological science. There _may_ be an
inheritance of sinful tendencies derived from sinful acts in the region
of the spiritual personality, even if no physical transmission is
possible.

However it be explained, it appears to be the case that Christianity is
bound to maintain the position that in the region of moral character
there is, in fact, a solidarity in humanity. We are