575. 



Lamarck and Lyell: a short way with 



Lamarckians. 



T AM much surprised to find my name in Romanes' list ("Post- 

 -*- Darwinian Questions," American edition, p. 14) of "the most 

 prominent American Representatives" of tlie Neo - Lamarckian 

 School, since I know of no reason for assigning this prominence to me 

 except that I am an American. I trust, however, that, in order to 

 define my position, I may be permitted to say that I studied the first 

 edition of the "Origin of Species" with intense interest, and that I 

 have been from that time an ardent disciple of Darwin, so far as his 

 great law of selection is concerned ; although I read at the same time 

 the examination of the views of Lamarck in the "Principles of 

 Geology," and was thus convinced that, while natural selection may 

 possibly be no more than a great but not the exclusive means of adaptive 

 modification, there is no evidence that the "Lamarckian principles" 

 are among the other means for securing this result. 



Since none of the modern Lamarckians seem to me to have 

 answered Lyell's argument, I have seen no reason for changing my 

 opinion. As this was formed years before the publication of 

 Weismann's speculations, his a priori objection to the possible 

 inheritance of " acquired characters" has not influenced me, since I 

 have learned from Lyell that there is another question at issue — a 

 question more fundamental and important than the question of their 

 inheritance or non-inheritance. 



In order to illustrate this I propose to examine Romanes' opinion 

 that, if the inheritance of the influence of nurture is "in any degree 

 operative at all, the great function of these ( Lamarckian ) principles 

 must be that of supplying to natural selection these incipient stages 

 of adaptive modification, in all cases where, but for this agency, there 

 would be nothing of the kind to select." (Page 153, x\merican edition.) 



Unless these "factors" can be proved to have this "function" 

 they are unworthy of consideration as a contribution to the history of 

 adaptive modification ; and I, for one, have found little to interest me 

 in the interminable dispute as to the inheritance or non-inheritance 

 of the effects of the conditions of life, because my study of Lyell 

 taught me, long ago, that the gist of the whole matter is the deeper 



H 



