HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



209 



tion — which has until just recently been accepted 

 unhesitatingly — bring forward a mass of indirect 

 evidence in support of their view ; nevertheless, it is 

 quite apparent that so long as direct experimental 

 evidence, about which no doubt can exist, is wanting, 

 this fundamental insecurity must exist. But to this 

 subject we shall return later. 



It is hardly necessary to remind any one familiar 

 with Mr. Darwin's works that he considered certain 

 phenomena to be only explicable as the inherited 

 effects of increased use or disuse of particular organs. 

 Many of the phenomena of degeneration, for in- 

 stance, in a useless organ, he thought were due to the 

 effects of disuse. He expressly states * that the 

 working of this factor is always subordinate to natural 

 selection, and that in some cases its effects are de- 

 stroyed by the latter ; but there is no doubt, as Mr. 

 Herbert Spencer has shown, f that, as time went 

 on, he attributed increasing importance to this 

 factor ; that he was, in fact, driven slightly from his 

 original position by hostile criticism. Later in life, 

 too, he became convinced that the cumulative direct 

 effect of changed conditions had been important in 

 some cases, especially where partial or complete 

 isolation allowed them to have full effect. In a letter 

 to Professor Wagner in 1876, % he goes so far as to 

 say, "In my ©pinion the greatest error which I have 

 committed has been not allowing sufficient weight to 

 the direct action of the environment, i.e. food, 

 climate, etc., independently of natural selection." 



But although Mr. Darwin believed in the trans- 

 mission by heredity of "acquired modifications," I 

 think it is a mistake to suppose that he derived his 

 belief from Lamarck's teaching. No one doubted, 

 until quite recently, that characters acquired during 

 the life of the individual were hereditary equally with 

 congenital ones. Mr. Darwin found that he could 

 not explain certain phenomena by natural selection, 

 and thought that they were best explicable as the 

 result of increased use or disuse, etc. The explana- 

 tion formed but a small part of Mr. Darwin's theory, 

 as it had of Lamarck's, but while it was scientifically 

 the strongest portion of the Lamarckian doctrine of 

 evolution, it was the weakest of the Darwinian. We 

 know that Mr. Darwin did not estimate the " Philo- 

 sophic Zoologique " very highly. Thus he says : "It 

 is curious how largely my grandfather. Dr. Erasmus 

 Darwin, anticipated the views and erroneous grounds 

 of opinion of Lamarck in his ' Zoonomia ' (vol. i. pp. 

 500-510), published in 1794." § Again, he remon- 

 strates with Lyell in 1863 for alluding to his (Darwin's) 

 views as "a modification of Lamarck's doctrine of 

 development and progression," and remarks that 

 " this way of putting the case is very injurious to its 

 acceptance, as it implies necessary progression, and 



* Loc. cit. p. 114, &c. 



t " Factors of Organic Evolution," pp. 32-33. 



J "Life," iii. p. 159. 



>5 " Origin," 6th edition. Historical Sketch, p. xiv. 



closely connects Wallace's and my views with what I 

 consider, after two deliberate readings, as a wretched 

 book, and one from which (I well remember my 

 surprise) I gained nothing." * In a letter to Hooker 

 he characterises the " Philosophic " as " veritable 

 rubbish," f and finally in October, 1859, just before 

 the publication of the " Origin" we find the following 

 remark as the postscript of a letter to Lyell : "You 

 often allude to Lamarck's work ; I do not know what 

 you think about it, but it appeared to me extremely 

 poor ; I got not a fact or idea from it." \ With 

 these very definite and strong statements of Darwin 

 before us we can hardly contend, I think, that he 

 borrowed his views about the inheritance of acquired 

 characters from Lamarck. In his " Historical 

 Sketch," prefixed to the sixth edition of the 

 "Origin," he calls attention to the "eminent ser- 

 vice" done by Lamarck in "arousing attention to 

 the probability of all change in the organic world 

 being the result of law ; " (p. xiv.) but there is no 

 word of praise for that part of the French naturalist's 

 theory of evolution which coincides with some of 

 Darwin's own views. I do not think there remains a 

 doubt that the " trace of Lamarckism " often alluded 

 to as remaining in the Darwinian theory, is not 

 Lamarckism at all, except in the sense that Lamarck 

 advocated similar views. As I have said, at the 

 time when the "Origin" was thought out and 

 written, and for a long while afterwards it had 

 never occurred to any one to doubt that acquired 

 characters could be inherited, and it was natural 

 enough for Darwin to use this universally accepted 

 factor to supplement natural selection. We find his 

 nearest approach to dogmatism on this subject : 

 "Changed habits produce an inherited effect, as in 

 the period of the flowering of plants when trans- 

 ported from one climate to another, etc." § The 

 naturalness of such an occurrence being obviously 

 taken for granted, there is in many cases hardly an 

 attempt at proof, and very seldom is the evidence for 

 and against the explanation given worked out and 

 weighed with the minute and painstaking care to 

 which we are accustomed in all Darwin's works. 



I have insisted on these considerations because it 

 seems of very considerable importance to ascertain 

 Darwin's exact attitude towards the views in question, 

 how and why he acquired them, and what relation 

 they bore in his mind to the theory of natural 

 selection. And it seems nearly certain that, unlike 

 that great hypothesis, the inheritance of acquired 

 characters was used as an obvious supplemental 

 explanation, and that a doubt of the truth of its 

 fundamental facts never entered Darwin's heaa. 

 But I deny that Darwin " partially retained the 

 Lamarckian explanation," thereby deliberately 

 adopting any of the speculative "laws" of the 



* "Life," iii. p. 14. 



% Ibid. ii. p. 215. 



f Ibid. ii. p. 29. 

 j "Origin," p. £ 



