But from this passage it would seem that Weismann has failed to notice that in "Westphal's case," as in "Brown-Séquard's experiments," the epilepsy was _transmitted to progeny_. That epilepsy may be produced in guinea-pigs by a method which does not involve any cutting (i.e. possibility of inoculation) would no doubt tend to corroborate the suggestion of microbes being concerned in its transmission when it is produced by cutting, _if in the former case there were no such transmission_. But as there _is_ transmission in _both_ cases, the facts, so far as I can see, entirely abolish the suggestion. For they prove that even when epilepsy is produced in the parents under circumstances which render "it obvious that the presence of microbes can have nothing to do with such an attack," the epileptiform condition is notwithstanding transmitted to the progeny. What, then, is gained by retaining the intrinsically improbable hypothesis of microbes to explain the fact of transmission "in Brown-Séquard's experiments," when this very same fact is proved to occur without the possibility of microbes "in Westphal's case"? The only other objection with regard to the seeming transmission of traumatic epilepsy which Weismann has advanced is, that such epilepsy may be produced by two or three very different operations--viz. division of the sciatic nerves (one or both), an injury to the spinal cord, and a stroke on the head. Does not this show, it is asked, that the epileptic condition of guinea-pigs is due to a generally unstable condition of the whole nervous system and is not associated with any particular part thereof? Well, supposing that such is the case, what would it amount to? I cannot see that it would in any way affect the only question in debate--viz. What is the significance of the fact that epilepsy is _transmitted_? Even if it be but "a tendency," "a disposition," or "a diathesis" that is transmitted, it is none the less a case of transmission, in fact quite as much so as if the pathological state were dependent on the impaired condition of any particular nerve-centre. For, it must be observed, there can be no question that it is always produced by an operation of _some_ kind. If it were ever to originate in guinea-pigs spontaneously, there might be some room for supposing that its transmission is due to a congenital tendency running through the whole species--although even then it would remain unaccountable, on the ultra-Darwinian view, why this tendency should be congenitally _increased_ by means of an operation. But epilepsy does not originate spontaneously in guinea-pigs; and therefore the criticism in question appears to me irrelevant.