Hindu Achievements in Exact Science: A Study in the History of Scientific Development c21.10

c21.10

Atreya held that “ the parental seed (germ-plasm) contains the whole parental organism in miniature (or *in potentia*), but it is independent of the parents’ developed organs, and is not necessarily affected by their idosyncrasies or deformities.” The germ-plasm was described as an organic whole independent of the developed parental body and its organs. The physiological characters and predispositions of the offspring were explained as being determined by the constituent elements of this parental seed. The continued identity of the germ-plasm from generation to generation may be taken as a corollary to this, though nowhere expressly stated.⁵⁹