It was shown, as we have seen, that the theory of the “qualitatively
unequal nuclear division” (“qualitativ-ungleiche Kernteilung” in German)
certainly was not true, and that there also was no strict “evolutio”
in protoplasm. Hence Weismann’s theory was clearly disproved. There
certainly is a good deal of real “epigenesis” in ontogeny, a good deal
of “production of manifoldness,” not only with regard to visibility but
in a more profound meaning. But some sort of pre-formation had also
been proved to exist, and this pre-formation, or, if you like, this
restricted evolution, was found to be of two different kinds. First an
intimate organisation of the protoplasm, spoken of as its polarity and
bilaterality, was discovered, and this had to be postulated for every
kind of germs, even when it was overshadowed by immediate obligatory
regulation after disturbances. Besides that there were cases in which
a real specificity of special parts of the germ existed, a relation of
these special parts to special organs: but this sort of specification
also was shown to belong to the protoplasm.
It follows from all we have mentioned about the organisation of
protoplasm and its bearing on morphogenesis, that the eggs of different
animals may behave rather differently, in this respect, and that
the eggs indeed may be classified according to the degree of their
organisation. Though we must leave a detailed discussion of these
topics to morphology proper, we yet shall try shortly to summarise
what has been ascertained about them in the different classes of the
animal kingdom. A full regulation of the *intimate* structure of
isolated blastomeres to a new whole, has been proved to exist in the
highest degree in the eggs of all echinoderms, medusae, nemertines,
Amphioxus, fishes, and in one class of the Amphibia (the *Urodela*);
it is facultative only among the other class of Amphibia, the *Anura*,
and seems to be only partly developed or to be wanting altogether among
ctenophora, ascidia, annelids, and mollusca. Peculiarities in the
organisation of *specific parts* of protoplasm have been proved to occur
in more cases than at first had been assumed; they exist even in the
echinoderm egg, as experiments of the last few years have shown; even
here a sort of specification exists at the vegetative pole of the egg,
though it is liable to a certain kind of regulation; the same is true in
medusae, nemertines, etc.; but among molluscs, ascidians, and annelids
no regulation about the specific organisation of the germ in cleavage
has been found in any case.
The differences in the degree of regulability of the intimate germinal
structure may easily be reduced to simple differences in the physical
consistency of their protoplasm.[23] But all differences in specific
organisation must remain as they are for the present; it will be one of
the aims of the future theory of development to trace these differences
also to a common source.
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