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germ-plasm of the people of the family in which those features are conspicuous. This is the Indian solution of the problem, however fanciful it may appear to the scientists. It is interesting to see how this doctrine is consistent with the present day empiricist positions while steering clear of their difficulties. It shows how the offspring may resemble the parents in their general and some of their individual features. It points out with the advanced scientists that the mere epigenetic factors are not sufficient to account for this resemblance. It agrees with the theory of the school of Weisman that the resemblance is not due to the germ-plasm being modified by the modifications in the body-cells. Lastly, while the theory of Weisman practically fails to account for the resemblance and while the theory of Haeckel and others, attempting to explain it by a reference to the adaptability of the germ-plasm to the influences of the modified bodycells appears to be hardly consistent, the Indian theory attempts to offer an explanation where explanation is not practically forth-coming. With Weisman it admits that the germ-plasm is not modified by the modifications in the bodycells. With the other school again, it acknowledges the instrumentality of the germ-plasm in the genesis in the offspring of the so-called inherited characters.
DOCTRINE OF THE SŪKŞMA ŚARĪRA EXPLAINS THE RACIAL, THE ANCESTRAL AND THE INDIVIDUAL FEATURES IN AN ANIMAL
Weisman's theory of the general features of the animal Body evolving from the germ-plasm may be said to refer to the "auto-taxic” character of the evolution. It points out that all the developments as well as the variations are due to vital tendencies to development, immanent in the germ-plasm. We have seen how the germ-plasm by itself will all its capacities to develop was not sufficient for the work of body-building. A guiding principle for the organisation of its potentialities and its operating towards definite ends was necessary and the Sūkşma Sarīra with the reincarnating Real immanetn in it may well be that directing
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