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Updated: June 12, 2025
During the life of the individual this germ plasm is capable of increasing in amount without changing its nature, and it thus continues to grow and is handed down from generation to generation, always endowed with the power of developing into a new individual under proper conditions, and of course when it does thus give rise to new individuals they will all be alike.
The studies made by contemporary biologists, and notably by the Russian biologist Janicki, on sexual reproduction have explained how this method of reproduction safeguards the homogeneity of the germ plasm in an animal species, and how it unceasingly renews the mutual contacts among the individual members of a race.
Or was his case rather a manifestation of larvated heredity, which would bring anew proof to the support of his theory of the germ plasm, or was it simply a singular case of hereditary resemblance, the sudden apparition of some unknown ancestor at the very decline of life?
So, too, if the germ plasm is simply stored in the individual, it is impossible to conceive any way that it can be affected by the conditions around the individual in such a way as to explain the inheritance of acquired variations.
The Chromacea build up their plasm directly from inorganic matter; the Bacteria feed on organic matter. Hence, if we logically divide the protist kingdom into plasma-forming Protophyta and plasma-consuming Protozoa, we must class the Bacteria with the latter; it is quite illogical to describe them as is still often done as Schizomycetes, and class them with the true fungi.
There is, therefore, continuity of the germ- plasm from one generation to another. One might represent the germ-plasm by the metaphor of a long creeping root-stock from which plants arise at intervals, these latter representing the individuals of successive generations." Mr.
If the germ plasm is wholly stored within the reproductive gland, it is certainly in a position to be only slightly affected by surrounding conditions which affect the animal.
Eimer therefore belongs to the class of naturalists, like Wigand, Askenasy, Naegeli, and many others, who reject the purely mechanical trend of Darwinism and recognize an "immanent principle of development." He seeks the essential cause of evolution in the constitution of the plasm of organisms.
Congenital variations, however, can not receive such an explanation. Being born with the individual, they can not be produced by conditions affecting him, but rather to something affecting the germ plasm from which he sprung. The nature of the germ plasm controls the nature of the individual, and congenital variations must consequently be due to its variations.
We may guess and we may hope, but we can have no certainty. Save only the certainty that no element will outlive the revolution unchanged not faiths, nor classes, nor domestic relations, nor any other component factor of our complex civilisation. All are becoming plastic in the organic plasm; all are losing features in the common mass of the melting-pot.
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