Abstract
What has to happen in order to have a so-called "acquired" character become an "inherited" character is not the germinal creation of the capacities for its appearance[long dash]these must already exist or the character could not appear[long dash]but some sort of germinal fixation which establishes it as part of the more habitual expression of the germplasm. How casual potentialities of the germplasm which permit of somatic acquirements become ingrained in the mechanism which underlies the more independently recurrent characters called hereditary may possibly be found to be due to quantitative changes in genes or genic potencies. Once concede that the constitution of the gene can wax or wane, and the way is open to the conception of how this might be induced through nutritive, toxic or functional means.

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