Now, it must be particularly noted that in this passage Weismann is speaking, not as in the previous passage, of _specialized_ congenital characters, but of _representative_ congenital characters. In other words, he here entertains the possibility which in the passage previously quoted he very properly rejects—namely, “that changes of the organism which result from external stimuli can be transmitted to the germ-cells, and will re-develop in the next generation _at the same time as that at which they arose in the parent, and in the same part of the organism_.” But it is evident that if the theory of germ-plasm is undermined by the concession made in the passage thus previously quoted, in the passage last quoted a match is put to the fuse. It does not signify whether the particular case of the butterflies in question will ever admit of any other explanation more in accordance with the theory of germ-plasm: the point is that in _no_ case can this theory entertain the possibility of causes other than admixtures of germ-plasm in sexual unions producing hereditary changes, (A) of _any_ kind, (B) still less of a _specialized_ kind, and (C) least of all of a _representative_ kind. For the distinguishing essence of this theory is, that germ-plasm must always have moved, so to speak, in a closed orbit of its own: its “sphere” must have been perpetually distinct from those of whatever other “plasms” there may be in the constellations of living things. So that, in such passages as those just quoted, Weismann is not only destroying the very foundations of his general theory of evolution, but at the same time he is identifying his more special theory of heredity with those which had been already published by his predecessors, and more particularly by Galton. Now, it is not Galton’s theory that we are considering; and therefore we must hereafter ignore those fundamental admissions, whereby Weismann every now and again appears ready to relinquish all that is most distinctive of, or original in, his own elaborate system of theories.