Note BL — Chapter V · HEREDITY AND THE ORIGIN OF VARIATIONS.
Reading edition
A few pages earlier (p. 200) in the same essay, Professor Weismann says, "A sudden transformation of the nucleo-plasm of a somatic cell into that of a germ-cell would be almost as incredible as the transformation of a mammal into an amœba." This at first sight does not seem quite consistent with the subsequent sentence which I have quoted in the text; for here, at any rate, the daughters of "mammals" are said to be converted into "amœbæ." But this is no doubt because the amœbæ (germ-plasms) are contained in the mammals (body-cells). (See the quotations that follow in the text.)