Or take another case that has been brought forward. English dogs are known in hot climates, like that of India, to degenerate in a few generations. Let us suppose that these degenerate dogs are removed back to England, and that their pups, born in English air and in our temperate climate, are still degenerate: would not this, it may be asked, show that the influence of climate on the body is inherited? I do not think that such a case would be convincing. For the climate might well influence the germ through the body. The body being unhealthy and degenerate, the germ-cells must, one may suppose, suffer too. The degenerate pup born in England might well owe its degeneracy to effects wrought upon the germinal cells. In other words, such a case would indicate some _general_ influence of the environment (including the environing body) on the germ. It does not convince us that _particular_ modifications of body-cells as such are transmitted under normal and healthy conditions. On the whole, it seems to me that the evidence we at present possess on this head is not convincing or conclusive in favour of the effects on the body alone being transmitted to offspring. If cases can be brought forward in which there can be no direct influence on the germ, in which elimination is practically excluded, and in which there is a _gradual and increasing_ accommodation of successive generations of organisms to changed conditions _which remain constant_, then such transmission will be rendered probable. I do not know that there are observations of this kind of sufficient accuracy to warrant our accepting this conclusion as _definitely proved_.