, and to make out
that there is little or no connection between the great mass of the
cells of which the body is composed, and those cells that are alone
capable of reproducing the entire organism. The tendency is to
assign to these last a life of their own, apart from, and
unconnected with that of the other cells of the body, and to cheapen
all evidence that tends to prove any response on their part to the
past history of the individual, and hence ultimately of the race.

Professor Weismann is the foremost exponent of those who take this
line. He has naturally been welcomed by English Charles-Darwinians;
for if his view can be sustained, then it can be contended that use
and disuse produce no transmissible effect, and the ground is cut
from under Lamarck's feet; if, on the other hand, his view is
unfounded, the Lamarckian reaction, already strong, will gain still
further strength. The issue, therefore, is important, and is being
fiercely contested by those who have invested their all of
reputation for discernment in Charles-Darwinian securities.

Professor Weismann's theory is, that at every new birth a part of
the substance which proceeds from parents and which goes to form the
new embryo is not used up in forming the new animal, but remains
apart to generate the germ-cells--or perhaps I should say "germ-
plasm"--which the new animal itself will in due course issue.

Contrasting the generally received view with his own, Professor
Weismann says that according to the first of these "the organism
produces germ-cells afresh again and again, and that it produces
them entirely from its own substance." While by the second "the
germ-cells are no longer looked upon as the product of the parent's
body, at least as far as their essential part--the specific germ-
plasm--is concerned; they are rather considered as something which
is to be placed in contrast with the tout ensemble of the cells
which make up the parent's body, and the germ-cells of succeeding
generations stand in a similar relation to one another as a series
of generations of unicellular organisms arising by a continued
process of cell-division." {274a} On another page he writes:--

"I believe that heredity depends upon the fact that a small portion
of the effective substance of the germ, the germ-plasm, remains
unchanged during the development of the ovum into an organism, and
that this part of the germ-plasm serves as a foundation from which
the germ-cel