LIFE'S EXPERIENCES AFFECTING CHILD.--Unless characteristics acquired by an individual, that is, the modifications of the organism due to his own life experiences, are capable of being handed down to his offspring, it is difficult to see how any progress could be made in the development of the race. Weismann's declaration that acquired characters are not transmissible was a surprise to the scientific world when first made, but it has been accepted by many Darwinians. His conclusion is dependent on his doctrine of heredity, which differs from that propounded by Darwin, but is by no means new; as its leading ideas, as pointed out by Professor G. J. Romanes,[73:A] are largely a reproduction of those of Mr. Francis Galton, whose work on heredity attracted much attention when first published. The views of Darwin, Galton and Weismann on that subject have been compared by Professor Romanes, who explains the distinction between them. He says (page 133), after referring to the supposed continuity of the germ-plasm, common to the theories of Galton and Weismann, but not required by that of Darwin, "The three theories may be ranked thus--The particulate elements of heredity all proceed centripetally from somatic-cells to germ-cells (gemmules): the inheritance of acquired characters is therefore habitual. "These particulate elements proceed for the most part, though not exclusively, from germ-cells to somatic-cells (stirp): the inheritance of acquired characters is therefore but occasional. "The elements in question proceed exclusively in the centrifugal direction last mentioned (germ-plasm): the inheritance of acquired characters is therefore impossible." The first of these theories is that of Darwin, and the last that of Weismann, whose notion of the continuity of germ-plasm supposes that no part of an organism generates any of the formative material which goes to make up its offspring. This material is regarded in much the same light as the sperm which the male parent confides to the keeping of the female, according to the notion of the ancient world above referred to. For, as Romanes states (page 26): "In each generation a small portion of this substance [germ-plasm] is told off to develop a new body to lodge and nourish the ever-growing and never-dying germ-plasm--this new body, therefore, resembling its so-called parent body simply because it has been developed from one and the same mass of formative material; and, lastly, that this formative material, or germ-plasm, has been continuous through all generations of successively perishing bodies, which therefore stand to it in much the same relation as annual shoots to a perennial stem: the shoots resemble one another simply because they are all grown from one and the same stock."