Note 8 — Chapter I · BOYHOOD—YOUTH—EARLY MANHOOD

The experiments in graft-hybridisation were to prove that formative material (or gemmules) was actually present in the general tissues of plants and was capable of uniting with the gemmules of another plant and thus of reproducing the entire organism. For if the hybrid, afterwards produced, presents equally the characters of the scion and the stock, then formative material must have been present in the tissues of the scion, and it is demonstrated that the somatic tissues of the scion have exercised an effect on the germinal elements of the stock, inasmuch as it has caused their offspring in part to resemble it. Such facts Romanes considered to be fully in harmony with the theory of Pangenesis, and inconsistent with any theory which supposes that no part of the parent organism generates any of the formative material.