THE THEORY OF DESCENT 289 



against Lamarckism by Darwinian authors 1 which may be 

 called the logical experimentum crucis of this doctrine, an 

 experimentum destined to prove fatal. You know that 

 among the polymorphic groups of bees, termites, and ants, 

 there exists one type of individuals, or even several types, 

 endowed with some very typical features of organisation, 

 but at the same time absolutely excluded from reproduction : 

 how could those morphological types have originated on 

 the plan allowed by the Lamarckians ? Of what use 

 would " judgment " about means that are offered by chance 

 and happen to satisfy needs, be to individuals which die 

 without offspring ? Here Lamarckism becomes a simple 

 absurdity, just as Darwinism resulted in absurdities 

 elsewhere. 



We were speaking about dogmatic Darwinism then, and 

 it is about dogmatic Lamarckism that we are reasoning at 

 present ; both theories must fall in their dogmatic form, 

 though a small part of both can be said to stand criticism. 

 But these two parts which survive criticism, one offered by 

 Lamarck, the other by Darwin, are far from being a 

 complete theory of transformism, even if taken together : 

 they only cover a small area of the field concerned in the 

 theory of descent. Almost everything is still to be done, 

 and we may here formulate, briefly at least, what we expect 

 to be accomplished by the science of the future. 



1 It has also very often been said by Darwinians that Lamarckism is 

 only able to explain those cases of adaptedness which relate to active 

 functioning but not mere passive adapted characters, like "mimicry" for 

 example. But this argument taken by itself > it seems to me, would not be 

 fatal to Neo-Lamarckism in the special form August Pauly gave to this 

 doctrine. 



