" So with use and disuse
and transmission of acquired characteristics generally--once show
that a single structure or instinct is due to habit in preceding
generations, and we can impose no limit on the results achievable by
accumulation in this respect, nor shall we be wrong in conceiving it
as possible that all specialization, whether of structure or
instinct, may be due ultimately to habit.
How far this can be shown to be probable is, of course, another
matter, but I am not immediately concerned with this; all I am
concerned with now is to show that the germ-cells not unfrequently
become permanently affected by events that have made a profound
impression upon the somatic cells, in so far that they transmit an
obvious reminiscence of the impression to the embryos which they go
subsequently towards forming. This is all that is necessary for my
case, and I do not find that Professor Weismann, after all, disputes
it.
But here, again, comes the difficulty of saying what Professor
Weismann does, and what he does not, dispute.
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