If he means that the
rhythms or vibrations that go on ceaselessly in every cell of the
body communicate themselves with greater or less accuracy or
perturbation, as the case may be, to the cells that go to form
offspring, and that since the characteristics of matter are
determined by vibrations, in communicating vibrations they in effect
communicate matter, according to the view put forward in the last
chapter of my book "Luck or Cunning," {36} then we can better
understand it. I have nothing, however, to do with Mr. Darwin's
theory of pangenesis beyond avoiding the pretence that I understand
either the theory itself or what Professor Weismann says about it;
all I am concerned with is Professor Weismann's admission, made
immediately afterwards, that the somatic cells may, and perhaps
sometimes do, impart characteristics to the germ-cells.
"A complete and satisfactory refutation of such an opinion," he
continues, "cannot be brought forward at present"; so I suppose we
must wait a little longer, but in the meantime we may again remark
that, if we admit even occasional communication of changes in the
somatic cells to the germ-cells, we have let in the thin end of the
wedge, as Mr. Darwin did when he said that use and disuse did a good
deal towards modification. Buffon, in his first volume on the lower
animals, {37} dwells on the impossibility of stopping the breach
once made by admission of variation at all.
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