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Excerpt from Eugenio Rignano Upon the Inheritance of Acquired Characters: A Hypothesis of Heredity, Development, and Assimilation "Some deny flatly the possibility of ever arriving at an understanding of the nature of life. But if we ask ourselves in what this understanding of the nature of life could consist, from the point of view of positive philosophy, we have no difficulty in recognizing that such an understanding must be reduced to comparing vital phenomena with some physico-chemical model already known, suitably modified by the particular special conditions imposed upon it so that just these special conditions shall determine the differences which exist between this vital phenomenon and that phenomenon of the inorganic world most closely related to it. If this be so, it is then the duty of science emphatically to refuse to give up the attempt to understand the nature of living matter, for that would be to belie the Spirit of all scientific endeavor. For whether it be clearly recognized or not, it is just this search for the nature of the vital principle which properly constitutes the principal object and the final goal of all biologic study in general." - E. Rignano, in "Acquired Characters," p. 334. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.