REVIEWS i;i 



themselves not wholly devoid of that merit and reasoning power which they deny 

 to their opponents, to assert the impossibility of such transfer. The reproductive 

 bodies are not formed of a secretion in which the whole organism takes a part : 

 in complex animals they are cells set apart at a very early stage in the develop- 

 ment of the individual, and take no direct share in the life of the parent, which 

 may almost be said to play the nurse to them in the way of feeding them ; to push 

 the view to an extreme, the reproductive or germ-cells are in the body but not of 

 it. . . . Now these reproductive cells may be fed and grow and multiply at the 

 expense of the nourishment brought to them by the organism in which they lie ; 

 but, so far as we know, there is no nervous apparatus connecting them with the 

 body, to influence them ; and without nerves we know of no transmission of 

 impulse in animals. Therefore, for the majority of adaptations, there is no 

 ascertained mechanis)n of transfer from the soma to the stirp, and as a consequence 

 there can be no transmission. This assumes the canon : ' No mechanism can 

 exist that escapes the modicum of knowledge that we have gained during the 

 century and a half or so that we have had to learn physiology'" (pp. 180-1). 



This is one of the reasons which have led so many to deny the possibility of the 

 inheritance of acquired characters. Dr. Hartog certainly does not overstate his 

 case. Indeed, it is easy to go a step further and to ask whether, in normal instances, 

 the reproductive cells do separate from the body soon enough to justify the 

 fundamental Weismannian distinction between stirp and soma. In most of the 

 cases when such a phenomenon has been noted {e.g. the aphides) there are special 

 biological reasons why it should be so. Nor is dogmatism based on our ignorance 

 of physiology the only factor to which the bias is due. The neo-Darwinian theory 

 is specially useful to those who advocate a very narrow and mechanistic view of 

 evolution. Also, as Dr. Hartog has briefly noted (p. 178), the view that Natural 

 Selection is the sole and only cause of evolution has become the stock-in-trade of 

 a certain class of political theorists, of whom Mr. Benjamin Kidd is the chief 

 spokesman. Because Natural Selection amongst individual human beings has, 

 by modern civilisation, been reduced to a minimum, therefore it must be trans- 

 ferred to groupings, therefore the group is all-important, therefore the individual 

 must be subordinated in every possible way, therefore follows socialism or cheap 

 imperialism according to the bias of the individual. It is absurd to suppose that 

 considerations of this kind have been wholly without influence in biological circles, 

 especially among the more popular writers who have no claim to rank high in the 

 biological world. 



To bring the question back again to the basis of fact and pure science is 

 exceedingly difficult. What is an acquired character ? Whatever observations 

 may be made, whatever experiments may be performed, there is always a loophole 

 for the surmise that a character which has all the appearance of being a true case 

 of the transmission of the effects of use and disuse is either not inherited or not 

 acquired. Moreover, on any hypothesis, there are cogent reasons for such trans- 

 mission being slow and gradual. The difficulty of proof thereby becomes greatly 

 enhanced. But the neo-Darwinian school, which, it is as well to emphasise once 

 more, did not include Darwin, is not entitled to claim the involved character of the 

 facts and the extreme difficulty of correct interpretation as a proof of their view. 

 The searching criticisms of a competent biologist such as Dr. Hartog are very 

 valuable to enable us to realise that much of this current so-called science is, at 

 the best, rash theorising, at the worst palpable pseudo-science. 



The Spencerian leanings of the book are not confined to the neo-Lamarckian 

 controversy. In many other ways Dr. Hartog shows an appreciation of the wider 

 philosophical view of biology of which Spencer has been the greatest representa- 



