Nothing can arise in an organism unless the predisposition to it is pre-existent, for every acquired character is simply the reaction of the organism upon a certain stimulus. Hence I should never have thought of asserting that predispositions cannot be transmitted, as E. Roth appears to believe. For instance, I freely admit that the predisposition to an “_Exercierknochen_” varies, and that a strongly marked predisposition may be transmitted from father to son, in the form of bony tissue with a more susceptible constitution. But I should deny that the son could develop an “_Exercierknochen_” without having drilled, or that, after having drilled, he could develop it more easily than his father, on account of the drilling through which the latter first acquired it. I believe that this is as impossible as that the leaf of an oak should produce a gall without having been pierced by a gall-producing insect, as a result of the thousands of antecedent generations of oaks which have been pierced by such insects, and have thus “acquired” the power of producing galls. I am also far from asserting that the germ-plasm--which, as I hold, is transmitted as the basis of heredity from one generation to another--is absolutely unchangeable or totally uninfluenced by forces residing in the organism within which it is transformed into germ-cells. I am also compelled to admit that it is conceivable that organisms may exert a modifying influence upon their germ-cells, and even that such a process is to a certain extent inevitable. The nutrition and growth of the individual must exercise some influence upon its germ-cells; but in the first place this influence must be extremely slight, and in the second place it cannot act in the manner in which it is usually assumed that it takes place. A change of growth at the periphery of an organism, as in the case of an “_Exercierknochen_,” can never cause such a change in the molecular structure of the germ-plasm as would augment the predisposition to an “_Exercierknochen_,” so that the son would inherit an increased susceptibility of the bony tissue or even of the particular bone in question. But any change produced will result from the reaction of the germ-cell upon changes of nutrition caused by alteration in growth at the periphery, leading to some change in the size, number, or arrangement of its molecular units. In the present state of our knowledge there is reason for doubting whether such reaction can occur at all; but, if it can take place, at all events the quality of the change in the germ-plasm can have nothing to do with the quality of the acquired character, but only with the way in which the general nutrition is influenced by the latter. In the case of the “_Exercierknochen_” there would be practically no change in the general nutrition, but if such a bony growth could reach the size of a carcinoma, it is conceivable that a disturbance of the general nutrition of the body might ensue.