A Commentary on Lamarckism 



1. INTRODUCTION 



I begin by excusing myself the task of making any detailed 

 exposition of the evolutionary teachings of the Chevalier de 

 Lamarck. Darwinism, we know, is Wallace''s word, and Lam- 

 arckism is not Lamarck*'s; and although the Avords stand for 

 doctrines which their eponymous authors would have no diffi- 

 culty in recognizing as their brain-children, it is their latter-day 

 growth and present stature that must occupy the whole of our 

 attention. Nor will it be profitable to carry out a semantical 

 autopsy upon expressions like *'the survival of the fittest' and 

 'the inheritance of acquired characters\ "'Fitness'' is now so 

 defined as to make Spencer''s phrase a tautology, and its use 

 tends to perpetuate the mistaken belief that the famous Mal- 

 thusian syllogism is a necessary part of the logical structure of 

 Darwinism (see Fisher, 1930, p. 43). As to the 'inheritance of 

 acquired characters', its last solemn rites have been capably 

 intoned by Woodger (1952), and there can be no case for having 

 it disinterred. 



The purpose of this introductory section is {a) to present in 

 the simplest possible terms the essential difi'erence between 

 Darwinian and Lamarckian interpretations of the hereditary 

 process, and (6) to show that inheritance that may be repre- 

 sented as Darwinian on one plane of analysis may be repre- 

 sented as Lamarckian on another. 



Consider for this purpose a population of streptococci 



79 



