Part 40

We cannot now accept either of these assumptions, for we know that the germ-substance is not homogeneous, and indeed is not merely a substance but a living cell of complex structure; and we no longer believe in a special vital force, and therefore not in a special 'power of development,' which could only be a modification of the former. We are thus as little able to accept the old epigenesis as the old evolution, and we must establish a theory of Development and Heredity on a new basis.

What this basis must be is in a general way beyond doubt. Since it is the endeavour of the whole of modern biology to interpret life more and more through the interactions of the physical and chemical forces bound up with matter, development, too, comes within this aim, for development is an expression of life. We seek to understand the mechanism of life, and, as a part of that, the mechanism of development and of heredity which is closely associated with it.

If we wished to attack the problem of heredity at its roots we should first of all have to try to understand the process of life itself as a series of physico-chemical sequences. Perhaps this will be achieved up to a certain point in the future, but if we were to wait for this we should in the meantime have to abandon all attempts at a theoretical interpretation of the phenomena of development and heredity, and might indeed have to postpone them to the Greek Kalends. That would be as though, in the practice and theory of medicine, all investigation into and speculation regarding disease had to wait until the normal, healthy processes of life were thoroughly understood. In that case we should now know nothing of bacteria diseases and the hundred other acquisitions of pathological science: physiology too would have remained far behind its present level if it had lacked the fruitful influence of experience in cases of disease, and the ideas and theories, true and false, which have been based thereon. In the same way we require a theory of development and heredity if we are to penetrate deeper into these phenomena, and must have it in spite of the fact that we are still very far from having a complete causal knowledge of the processes of life. For the raw material of observation, which is to some extent fortuitous, will never bring us any further on; observation must be guided by an idea, and thus directed towards a particular goal.

It is, however, quite possible to leave aside for the present all attempts at an explanation of life, and simply to take the elements of life for granted, and on this basis to build up a theory of heredity. We have already taken a step in that direction by establishing that the whole substance of the fertilized ovum does not take part in heredity in the same degree, but that only a small part, the chromatin of the nucleus, is to be looked upon as the bearer of the hereditary qualities, and by deducing, further, that this chromatin is made up of a varying number of small but still visible units, the ids, each of which virtually represents the whole organism, or, as I have already expressed it, each of which contains within itself, as primary constituents, all the parts of a perfect animal.

It was these 'primary constituents' which led us to the digression in regard to Bonnet's theory of 'Evolutio' and Wolff's 'Epigenesis.'

Let us now inquire what must be the constitution of such a chromatin globule, an id, so that, shut up within the nucleus of a living reproductive cell, it can direct the development of a new organism which resembles its parent. Two fundamental assumptions present themselves, and these can be related to every conception of a 'germ-plasm,' even independently of the assumption of ids. Either we may think of the id as made up of similar or of different kinds of parts, none of which has any constant relation to the parts of the perfect animal, or we think of it as composed of a mass _of different kinds of parts, each of which bears a relation to a particular part of the perfect animal_, and so to some extent represents its 'primary constituents' (_Anlagen_), although there may be no resemblance between these 'primary constituents' and the finished parts. The assumption of a germ-plasm composed of similar parts, which has been made, for instance, by Herbert Spencer, may be called the modern form of epigenesis, while the other assumption is the modern form of the 'evolution' theory. As the former theory can no longer call to its aid a 'formative power' as a _Deus ex machina_, it can only explain development as induced by the influence of external conditions--temperature, air, water, gravity, position of parts--upon the chemical components of the germ-plasm, which are everywhere uniformly mingled; and it makes no difference whether this uniform germ-plasm is thought of as composed of many different kinds of parts, as long as those parts are mingled uniformly to make the germ-plasm and bear no relation to definite parts of the developing animal. Oscar Hertwig has recently outlined such a theory. Although I cannot expound it here I must say at least so much with regard to it, and to all other theories of development founded on a similar basis, that they could not be accepted even if they were able to offer a workable explanation of the development of the individual, and for this reason, that ontogeny is not an isolated phenomenon which can be interpreted without reference to the whole evolution of the living world, for it is most intimately associated with this, being indeed a piece of it, having, as we shall see, arisen from it, and, furthermore, preparing for its continued progress. _Ontogeny must be explained in harmony with phylogeny and on the same principles._ The assumption of a germ-plasm without primary constituents, or of a completely homogeneous germ-plasm, as Herbert Spencer maintained, is irreconcilable with this, for, as will be seen, it contradicts certain facts of inheritance and variation. Therefore all theories founded on this assumption must be rejected.

There is another and, I believe, weighty consideration which forbids us to assume a germ-substance without primary constituents. I shall return to this later, but in the meantime I wish to build up more completely my own 'germ-plasm' theory.

I assume that the germ-plasm consists of a large number of different living parts, each of which stands in a definite relation to particular cells or kinds of cells in the organism to be developed, that is, they are 'primary constituents' in the sense that their co-operation in the production of a particular part of the organism is indispensable, the part being _determined_ both as to its existence and its nature by the predestined particles of the germ-plasm. I therefore call these last _Determinants_ (_Bestimmungsstücke_), and the parts of the complete organism which they determine _Determinates_, or hereditary parts.

It is easy to show on what basis this assumption rests; the phenomena of inheritance taken in conjunction with those of variation seem to me to compel us to it. We know that all the parts of an organism are variable, and that in one individual the same part may be larger, in another smaller. Not all variations are transmissible, but many of them, and some very minute ones, are. Thus, for instance, in many human families there occurs a small pit, hardly as large as the head of a pin, in the skin of the ear, whose transmission I have observed from the grandmother to the son and to several grandchildren. In such a case there must be a minute something in the germ-plasm, not present in that of other human beings, which causes the origin, in the course of development, of this little abnormality in the skin.

There are human families in which individuals occur repeatedly, and through several generations, who have a white lock of hair, in a particular spot, on an otherwise dark-haired head. This cannot be referred to external influences, it must depend on a difference in the germ, on one, too, which does not affect the whole body, not even all the hairs of the body, but only those of a particular spot on the surface of the head. It is a matter of indifference whether the white colouring of the hair-tuft is produced by an abnormal constitution of the matrix of the hair, or by other histological elements of the skin, as of the blood-vessels or nerves. It can only depend ultimately on a divergently constituted part of the germ-plasm, which can only affect this one spot on the head, and alter it, if it is itself different from what is usual. On this account I call _it_ the _determinant_ of the relevant skin-spot and hair-group. In Man such minute local variations are usually lost after a number of generations, but in animals there are innumerable phenomena which prove to us that single minute deviations can become permanent. Thus there lives in Central Europe a brown 'blue butterfly,' _Lycæna agestis_, which has a little black spot in the middle of its wing. The same species also occurs in Scotland, but there, instead of the black spot, it has a milk-white one, and so-called 'eye-spots' on the under surface of the wing have also lost their black centres. The species has thus varied transmissibly, but only in regard to these particular spots on the wing. A slight variation must therefore have taken place in the germ-plasm which only affects these few parts of the body, or, to express it otherwise, the germ-plasms of the ancestral species and of the variety can only be distinguished by a difference which determines exclusively the scale colour of these spots. The two germ-plasms differ, I should say, only as regards the _determinants_ of these wing-scales.

We know from the artificial selection to which Man has subjected and still subjects his domesticated animals and useful plants, that any spots and parts of the body which he chooses can be hereditarily altered, if the desired variations which present themselves are always selected for breeding, and that this does not necessarily cause variation in other parts of the body. When, for instance, in the case cited by Darwin, the comb of a Spanish cock which had previously hung downwards was made to stand upright because a prize had been offered for this character, or when a certain breed of hens was 'furnished with beards,' the results were permanent variations affecting only the parts on which the fancier's attention had been fixed. In the same way, when the tail feathers of the Japanese cock are lengthened to three feet the rest of the plumage does not alter, still less any other part of the body. Of course there are numerous 'correlated' variations, and in very many cases the breeder causes a second or third character, on which he had not fixed his attention, to vary in addition to the one he was aiming at. But such concomitant variations are not necessary or inevitable in all cases; and indeed we need not refer them all to a true correlation of the parts, but may suppose that they depend not infrequently on the faultiness of our power of observation, which is not sufficiently keen to control several parts of the body at one time, and to notice minimal variations in parts on which we have not specially fixed our attention.

So much, at least, is certain, that in all these cases of the artificial alteration of individual characters the germ-plasm is in some way changed, but always in such a way that it differs from that of the ancestral form through such variations alone, and the effect of these is that only the altered parts are influenced thereby, and not the whole organism. This again is but another way of saying that only the _determinants_ of these parts have altered.

We can see from a thousand cases that exactly the same happens in a state of nature, that there, too, one part changes after another, until the highest possible degree of adaptation to the conditions has been attained. In the mimetic resemblance to leaves exhibited among butterflies this is most clearly seen, for here we are familiar with the model--the leaf--and we see how one species approximates to it in a general way only in the total colour, how others develop a brown stripe crossing the posterior wing obliquely, so that, to a certain extent, it resembles the midrib of a leaf, how in a third species this stripe is continued for some distance forward across the anterior wing, in a fourth it goes a little further, until, finally, in a fifth, it is continued on to the tip of the anterior wing. This may be seen, for instance, in the genus _Anæa_, which is rich in species. But even then a still further increase of the resemblance is possible, for, as is well known, there are not infrequently imitations of the lateral veins of the leaf as well, or dark spots which faithfully reproduce the mould-spot on a damp, decaying leaf, or colourless transparent spots which probably simulate dewdrops, and so on. All these are variations relating to individual and distinct groups of wing-scales, which have varied transmissibly and independently, that is, each of them has been produced by a variation in the germ-plasm, which brought about a change in this particular area of the body and in no other.

Let us for a moment assume the impossible, and suppose that we could look on at the evolution of such a leaf-butterfly; the beginning of the leaf-imitation might have its cause in the fact that an ancestral form of _Kallima_, which had previously lived in the meadows, exhibited on the part of some of its descendants a migration to the woods, and thus divided into two groups, with a different manner of life--a meadow form and a wood form. The latter adapted itself to sitting among leaves, and the midrib of a leaf developed on its wings. In a germ-plasm without 'primary constituents' this variation could only depend on a uniform variation of all the parts, for these parts are either alike among themselves, or at any rate have the same value for every part of the finished organism. But the germ-plasm of the new breed must somehow differ from that of the ancestral form, otherwise it could produce no new variety, but only the ancestral form over again. But how could an animal differing only in one minute part arise from a germ-plasm which has varied in all its parts, and how could such little steps of variation be repeated many times in the course of the phylogeny without the corresponding variations of the germ-plasm becoming so intense that not only the wing-markings but everything about the animal would be altered likewise? And yet these 'leaf-pictures' have not originated suddenly, but by many small steps, so that the germ-plasm must have varied _in toto_ a hundred times in succession if there are no primary constituents.

In the Indian species, _Kallima paralecta_, there are no fewer than five well-marked varieties, the differences between which depend solely on the manner in which the leaf-picture on the wing is elaborated, _for the upper surface of the wing is alike in all_. Even a cursory observation of a collection of these butterflies shows that the lateral veins of the leaf-picture are quite different in number, distinctness, and length in the different individuals. On the right half of the wing there may be as many as six of them indicated (Fig. 13); and it can be observed that the three middle ones are the longest, most sharply defined, and darkest, while those lying near the tip and the base of the mimic leaf are shorter and often even shadowy. On the left side the second lateral vein in particular distinctly shows indentations indicative of the rings, inherited from the ancestral forms, which surrounded the still visible eye-spots (_Aufl_); the third lateral vein is quite indefinite and shadowy, but nevertheless it runs exactly parallel to the first two, and thus heightens the deceptive effect. We can thus distinguish older and more recent elements in the marking--a proof of the slow and successive origin of the picture.

This is not reconcilable with the conception of a germ-plasm without primary constituents, however complex a mixture it may otherwise be. A substance which had to undergo thousands upon thousands of variations, arising from each other according to law and in the strictest succession, in order that it might become a definite organism, predetermined as to all its thousands of parts down to the most minute, cannot vary over and over again in its whole constitution without the consequences showing themselves in numerous, or indeed in _all_, the parts of the body. Such variations in the germ-plasm would be comparable to many successive deviations of a ship from her course, which, although the single ones would only cause a minimal deviation from the true course, would, when summed up in a voyage of some length, land the vessel at quite another coast than the one intended. If each individual adaptation of the species depended on a variation of the whole germ-plasm the wood _Kallima_ would soon retain no resemblance to its ancestral form, the meadow species; yet we are acquainted with species of _Kallima_ which do not show the special resemblance to a leaf, but, for instance, still exhibit the perfectly developed eye-spot of the ancestral form, and so forth. It follows, therefore, that the origin of the leaf-picture has not greatly influenced the general character of the species; and the fact that the upper surface of the wings has remained the same in all the varieties is in itself enough to prove this.

Since, then, the resemblance to a leaf cannot have arisen without something in the germ-plasm varying, since the germ-plasm of a forest _Kallima_ and a meadow _Kallima_ must be different in something, and cannot be any more alike than the germ-plasm of a fantail-pigeon and a carrier, there _must be 'primary constituents' in the germ-plasm_, that is, vital units whose variation occasions the variation of definite parts of the organism, and of these alone.

It is on such considerations as these that my assumption, that _the germ-plasm is composed of determinants_, depends. There must be as many of these as there are regions in the fully-formed organism capable of independent and transmissible variation, including all the stages of development. Every part, for instance, of the butterfly's wing, which is capable of independent and transmissible variation, must, so I conclude, be represented in the germ-plasm by an element which is likewise variable, the determinant; but the same must be true of every independently and transmissibly variable spot of the caterpillar from which the butterfly developed. We know how markedly caterpillars are adapted in form and colour to their environment. Let us assume that the caterpillar of the butterfly which we chose as an example of wing-marking had the habit of feeding only by night and during the daytime of resting on the trunk of a tree, or, more precisely, in the crevices of the bark. It would then resemble the caterpillar of the moths of the genus _Catocala_ or the Geometers (Geometridæ), and possess the colour of the bark of the tree in question; the determinants of the skin would thus have varied to correspond with this mode of life on the part of the caterpillar, so that the skin would appear grey or brown. But there cannot be only _one_ determinant of the caterpillar skin in the germ-plasm, for the bark-like colour of, for instance, a Geometer caterpillar is not a uniform grey, but has darker spots at certain places and lighter whitish spots at others, such as are to be seen on the bark of the twig on which the caterpillar is wont to rest, or brown-red spots, like those on the cover-scales of the buds, or little warts and protuberances which exactly correspond to similar roughnesses on the twigs, to cracks in the bark, and so on. All these markings are constant, and are to be found in the same spot in every caterpillar of the species. A large number of regions of the caterpillar skin must therefore be independently determined by the germ-plasm; the germ-plasm must contain parts the variations of which bring about variations only of an independently variable region of the caterpillar skin. In other words, in the germ-plasm of the butterfly ovum there must not only be determinants for many regions of the butterfly's wing, but also for many regions of the caterpillar's skin.

This line of argument, of course, applies to all the bodily parts and organs of the butterfly and of the caterpillar, as well as to all the stages of development of the species as far as these parts are able to vary in such a way that the variation reappears in the following generation, that is to say, as far as it is transmissibly variable.

But all parts must be transmissibly variable which have exhibited independent variation in relation to their ancestors. When, for instance, the eggs of a butterfly (_Vanessa levana_) bear a deceptive resemblance to the flower-buds of the stinging-nettle on which the caterpillar lives, not only in form and colour, but in their pillar-like arrangement, we may conclude that these eggs have varied transmissibly from those of their ancestors, which had not acquired the habit of living on the stinging-nettle, in these three respects independently, that is, uninfluenced by any other variations the species may have undergone; and that, consequently, the germ-plasm must contain determinants for the egg-shell, egg-colouring, and so on. The manner of laying the eggs in the form of pillars depends on a modification of the egg-laying instinct, which must in its turn depend on the variations of certain nerve-centres, and we learn from this that there must be in the germ-plasm determinants for the individual centres of the nervous system.

It may, perhaps, be suggested that matters could be explained in a simpler way--that it is enough to assume the presence in the egg of determinants for all the parts of the caterpillar, and that those of the butterfly are only formed within the caterpillar.