The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-10-20
WONDERS OF HEREp1rY.
Interesting Revelations OF the Nj
crosse pe.
From The Nelo York Tfnes

from Ate NetC YORK Times.
Doubtless the noblest study of mankind
is ma %, but hitherto it has also been one of
the most inexact. Only in recent years has
that study been prosecuted with ANYTHING
like that precision and certainty which
modern science 9th demands and makes
possible. The various races Of men, and
tae individuals of the races, have indeed
been taken for granted and observed ana
described with much minuteness. Bu5 in
the way or explaining how and why a child
Is Ike It's father or different from him and
like the grandfather science has offered
only theories. From the "Geueration of
Animals" to the descent of Mann is an
enormous leap, and yet Darwin's pangene-
sis, itself so recent as to have escaped most
dictionaries, IS now almost as out of date as
the lmaginings Of Aristotle, the first dis
sector. 1t is now scarcely possible to be
lleve that every cell or unit Of the animal
body can throw off gemmules with the ca
pacity Of development into their like,
Tor the microscope mas revealed
something of natures working,
and her methods are different.
Sir. William Turner, president of
the anthrOpological section of the British
association, at its last meeting reviewed the
discoveries of recent years, and as a result
declares that there is a physical basis of
heredity. The astronomers conception of
universe OF thousand suns hung in inf
mite srace is probably the grandest idea
possible to the human brain. Yet there
must now be placed beside it a belief in
new brotherhood OF man which carries the
worlds last infant back in an unbroken
chain and makes it as certainly part of
the tirs5 man as one might look at a Topped
of member and consider it Il part of him
self. Whether or not man himself evolved
from universal viscous, formless pIasma. is
no int tQaTN boz
rowing for an instant license from fancy,
there appears beside the universe. as the
telescope dlScIoSeS It, q conception OF uni.
versal matter as studied with the micro
scope which, if apprehended in even the
remotest degree, must give terrified pause
to the lrreliglous scoffer.
Sir William Turner thus summarizes the
observations of several German students,
among whom Prof. Weissmanis prominent.
Each animal organism isolates from the
cells constituting the bulk of its body GER
tain other cells wIich have nofunctl0u as
regards the parent body, but are associated
with 1t only for purposes of their nutrition.
Bee culturiSts know that bees produce their
fertile queens by selecting and feeding an
individual, which until SO treated, has no
capacity for queenship- The anal )gy is far
from perfect, but it serves to illustrate how,
at microscopic stage Of development, the
fertile cells are Differentiated for reproduce
i've purpose. These cells are termed pro-
nuclei, and they have the sex OF the parent
which produces them. When male pro-
ucleus and female pronucleus
come together a portion of the
germ plasm is extruded from
the egg to form what are call led polar bodies,
about which the microscopes as yet tell
us nothing. The result of the fusion or
union of the pronuclei is termed the seq
menta ion nucleus 1t is still microscopic,
IHz e. ILL
or science has seen that 1t is not homo
geneous, formless subst ance, but is deli
cately organized Fibrils called chroma-
tive filaments are observed, which coil and
lauersect, enmeshlng VICIOUS some
thing not yet aualyzed. These fila nents
are seen to swell and arrange themselves at
first iuro one and then into two starlike
figures, which then divide. The division is
repeated again and again. These cells at
length arrange themselves into what are
termed germinal or embryonic layers, aud
from these layers arise every tissue and
every organ of the body. If the process
has been followed it will be seen that the
chain is complete There is no cell in the
adult so infinitely small that il does not con-
tain fragment OF tue augmentation nucleus.
Nay, more, the fragment which each parent
has contributed to that nucleus was received
from the previous generation. The paren-
tai dilution is almost inconceivable even to
Hahnemannian. But, ou the faith of
these observers, it is an eternal verify that
there is an absolute, physical, material con-
tinuitv between every cell in the body of
the child and every cell in the body of
the parent. Manis indeed wonderful Gre
alton. But what can be said of the mar
velous particle, so minute that it almost es-
capes artificial vision, and yet of chemical
and molecular complexity aud potentially
SO out of all proportion to the bulk. Truly
as science un oils it pages we may know
more, but the marvel still grows and the
heart of the mystery even yet evades us.
Both the likenesses and unlikeneSSes be-
tween parents and children present both q
the )retical and observed agreement with
this announcement. When the polar bodies
are extended, more or less of either parent
may so TO the fusion of the male and female
pronuclei into the augmentation nucleus
And the molecules within the augmentation
nucleus, the starting point of each genera
ton, are capable of changes in form, size,
and position. Thus either parent NAV
predominant IN tae offspring by actually
contributing greater portion to the germ
plasm, and revision to an ancestral type
is readily explained by the physical
two generations, but between
all. And variations, OF what
florists call ''sports," may arise simply
from changes among the molecules of the
germ-piasrn. But here arises a knotty
point Can the adult body be conceived to
50 modify the germ plasm as to transmit
acquired peculiarities? The doctrine OF the
continuity of the germ-splasm through
ages is difficult But to ask US to believe
that the primordial germ contained within
itself, without exterior influence, every
variation of race, structure, character,
temperament, and so on, is to overtax be-
lief. Sir William Turner thinks that the
developed body can influence the trans
mitted plasm through requirements from
environment or occupation.
Science, of course, is in no way concerned
with the religious bearings of its revela-
tionS. 1t is clear that the evolutiouist and
the materialist will find in Sir William
Turner's paper, which must suffer from con-
densation aud capitalization, support for
their positions. 1t may or may not be
extreme to observe that the doctrine of the
universal fail in Adam acquires new force
from the truth that some of Adam is phys
icaliy as well as morally in each human
Sir William Topper says nothing on these
heads. But the thought would appear to
have been in his mind. For, in an eloquent
closing passage, he declares that the physi-
cal aspect of race descent by no means
covers the entire ground. In man he rec
ognizeS an element beYOnd and above his