Having thus pointed out the great distinction between the theories of stirp and of germ-plasm, it became needful to note that Weismann himself is not consistent in observing it. On the contrary, in some passages he apparently expresses himself as willing to resign both his distinctive postulates—continuity as _perpetual_, and stability as _absolute_. But it is evident that such passages must be ignored by his critics, because, although as far as his theory of heredity is concerned they betoken an approach to the less speculative views of Galton, any such approach is proportionally destructive of his theory of evolution. It must not be supposed that I am taking an ungenerous advantage of these occasionally fundamental concessions. On the contrary, one cannot but admire the candour which they display. But, as I have said, it is necessary for us to ignore them, if only in order to examine the Weismannian theory of germ-plasm as a distinctive theory at all. And more than this. Seeing that his theory of heredity differs from Galton’s chiefly in being further an elaborate theory of evolution (founded on the two additional postulates in question), my main object has been to show the enfeeblement of the former which Weismann has caused by his addition of the latter. If he were to express his willingness to abandon his theory of evolution for the sake of strengthening his theory of heredity by identifying its main features with those of Galton’s, personally I should have no criticism to pass. Indeed, I was myself one of the first evolutionists who called in question the Lamarckian factors; and ever since the publication of Galton’s theory of heredity at about the same time, I have felt that in regard to its main principles—or those in which it agrees with Weismann’s—it is probably the true one. But I can nowhere find that Weismann is thus prepared to surrender his theory of evolution. Occasionally he plays fast and loose with the two additional postulates on which this theory is founded; but he does so without appearing to perceive the speculative impossibility of any longer sustaining his temple of evolution if he were to remove its pillars of germ-plasm. Ignoring, then, these inconsistencies, we proceeded to examine separately, and on their own respective merits, the two distinctive postulates of the theory of germ-plasm—_perpetual_ continuity since the first origin of life, and _absolute_ stability since the first origin of sexual propagation.