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- It has long since been definitely settled that acquired characters are not transmitted in heredity.
And in another place he exelaims:
- If cells did not maintain their ancestral character in a very remarkable way, what would be the use of grafting a good kind of fruit on to a stock of poorer quality? The very permanency of the graft thus produced is proof of the persistency with which the cells reproduce only " after their kind."
Then in speaking of Mendel's discoveries in the realm of heredity, and which have now become scientifically demonstrated laws, he says that
- the whole foundation of biological evolution has been completely undermined by these new discoveries.
And he sums up the conclusions to which present-day scientists are coming, in the words:
- The principles of heredity, as now understood, have brought us back to that great truth which is given in the first chapter of our Bible, that each form of plant or animal was designed by the Creator to reproduce only "after its kind."
The one who accepts this testimony, therefore, is compelled to conclude that the doctrine of acquired characters is also dead.
(iii). The Biogenetic "Law."
In addition to the two forms of the theory above noted, Haeckel added emphasis to these so-called biological proofs by putting forth a doctrine that came
