HISTORICAL SPECULATIONS 11 



repeated associations formed by contact with the 

 outside. 



It was not so long ago that we were taught that 

 the instincts of animals are the inherited ex^^erience 

 of their ancestors — lapsed intelligence was the cur- 

 rent phrase. 



Lamarck's name is always associated with tlie 

 application of the theory of the inheritance of ac- 

 quired characters. Darwin fully endorsed this view 

 and made use of it as an explanation in all of his 

 writings about animals. Today the theory has few 

 followers amongst trained investigators, but it still 

 has a j^opular vogue that is widespread. 



To Weismann more than to anv other single in- 

 dividual should be ascribed the disfavor into which 

 this view has fallen. In a series of brilliant essays he 

 laid bare the inadequacy of the sup23osed evidence 

 on which the inheritance of acquired characters 

 rested. Your neighbor's cat, for instance, has a short 

 tail, and it is said that it had its tail pinched off by a 

 closing door. In its litter of kittens one or more is 

 found without a tail. Your neighbor believes that 

 here is a case of cause and effect. He may even have 

 known that the mother and grandmother of the cat 

 had natural tails. But it has been found that short 

 tail is a dominant character; therefore, until Ave 

 know who was the father of the short-tailed kittens 

 the accident to its mother and the normal condition 

 of her maternal ancestry are not to the point. 



