FOB DARWIN 373 



despite the splendid example of Darwin to the contrary. Is it not 

 strange, therefore, with all the real interest in the theory of evolution, 

 that so few of the immediate followers of Darwin devoted themselves 

 exclusively to a study of that process ? As I have said, the systematists 

 have been accumulating a vast amount of valuable material, but their 

 chief interest has, on the whole, been in its classification, only sec- 

 ondarily in its bearing on evolution. The morphologist has been busy 

 in applying the theory of evolution to the explanation of group relation- 

 ships. The paleontologist has perhaps been more directly concerned 

 with the evolution question than has any other worker. 



There is a school that calls itself Lamarckian or ISTeo-Lamarckian 

 which as far as its name goes should include the followers of Lamarck 

 rather than of Darwin. Yet with few exceptions the Neo-Lamarckians 

 derive their inspiration, I think, directly from Darwin. Darwin held 

 that characters acquired during the life-time of the individual may be 

 transmitted to the offspring. He abhorred what he supposed to be 

 Lamarck's rubbish, that an animal acquired a new part by willing it. 

 We have seen that this is a travesty on Lamarck's real teaching, and that 

 on the whole Darwin's view of acquired characters is almost Lamarck's. 

 Yet the modern Lamarckians get their doctrine direct from Darwin 

 rather than from Lamarck, who propounded it fifty years earlier, as had 

 Erasmus Darwin, still earlier. 



I have laid emphasis on the relation of Lamarckism to Darwinism 

 in order to draw attention to the problem of adaptation. The Neo- 

 Lamarckians have kept this all-important question in the foreground, 

 while others have taken adaptation too much for granted in their 

 attempts to explain the origin of species; for species, in a technical 

 sense, may have little to do with the problem of adaptation. The life 

 of an animal is intimately dependent on its adaptative characters, but 

 its " specific characters " may be largely unimportant for its existence. 

 Systematists and morphologists include broadly the followers of 

 Darwin during the thirty years after the publication of the " Origin of 

 Species." They have advanced to a high degree the principles of their 

 science, and the modern aspect of zoology is largely the outcome of their 

 varied and far-reaching labors. 



There is a small group of writers scattered amongst these larger 

 groups that are ranked or rank themselves Neo-Darwinians. I must 

 pause a moment to pay them my tardy respects. They have set them- 

 selves up to be the true Darwinians. They seem less concerned with 

 the advancement of the study of evolution than with expounding 

 Darwinism as dogma. Their credulity is more remarkable than their 

 judgment. To imagine a use for an organ is for them equivalent to 

 explaining its origin by natural selection without further inquiry. 

 Any examination, in fact, into the nature of variation, they appear to 



