To say that the individual exists for the
race is to say that he, and, as we shall see, pre-eminently she, exist
for future individuals; and that is not a destiny to be despised of any.
Let us attempt to state simply but accurately what biologists mean in
regarding the individual as primarily the host and servant of something
called the germ-plasm.
When the processes of development and of reproduction are closely
scrutinized, we find evidence which, together with the conclusions based
thereon, was first effectively stated by August Weismann, of Freiburg,
in his famous little book, "The Germ-Plasm."[1] The marvellous cells
from which new individuals are formed must no longer be regarded, at any
rate in the higher animals and plants, as formerly parts of the parent
individuals. On the contrary, we have to accept, at least in general and
as substantially revealing to us the true nature of the individual, the
doctrine of the "continuity of the germ-plasm," which teaches that the
race proper is a potentially immortal sequence of living germ-cells,
from which at intervals there are developed bodies or individuals, the
business and _raison d'etre_ of which, whatever such individuals as
ourselves may come to suppose, is primarily to provide a shelter for the
germ-plasm, and nourishment and air, until such time as it shall produce
another individual for itself, to serve the same function.
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