TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: —Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected. —Bold text has been rendered as =bold text=. AN EXAMINATION OF WEISMANNISM Oxford HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY [Illustration: AUGUST WEISMANN] AN EXAMINATION OF WEISMANNISM BY GEORGE JOHN ROMANES M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. HONORARY FELLOW OF GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE London LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1893 PREFACE AS already stated in the Preface to the second edition of _Darwin and after Darwin_, Part I, severe and protracted illness has hitherto prevented me from proceeding to the publication of Part II. It is now more than a year since I had to suspend work of every kind, and therefore, although at that time Part II was almost ready for press, I have not yet been able to write its concluding chapters. Shortly before and during this interval Professor Weismann has produced his essays on _Amphimixis_ and _The Germ-plasm_. These works present extensive additions to, and considerable modifications of, his previous theories as collected together in the English translation, under the title _Essays on Heredity, Vol. I_. Consequently, it has become necessary for me either to re-write the examination of his system which I had prepared for Part II of my own treatise, or else to leave that examination as it stood, and to add a further chapter dealing with those later developments of his system to which I have just alluded. After due reflection I have decided upon the latter course, because in this way we are most likely to obtain a clear view of the growth of Weismann’s elaborate structure of theories—a view which it is almost necessary, for the purposes of criticism, that we should obtain.