THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



misrepresented him through jealousy. Whichever may 

 be the truth, this attitude was most unfortunate for 

 the reputation of a great man. 



Owing to the reverence for Darwin and the blind 

 submission to his views which prevailed for so many 

 years, it was a difficult task to live down Darwin's 

 contempt. Only after facts had multiplied, showing 

 the inadequacy of natural selection, did biologists be- 

 gin timidly to take Lamarck's doctrine seriously. If 

 one can read the signs aright, we may expect to have 

 an increasing attempt to explain the cause of evolu- 

 tion by the inheritance of acquired traits. The reluc- 

 tance of the biologists to accept this doctrine does not 

 rest so much on the lack of experimental verification 

 as it does on the fact that Lamarck's cause of varia- 

 tion is fundamentally vitalistic in so far as it acknow- 

 ledges the influence of the will or desire. To admit 

 such a cause is contrary to scientific and to mechanis- 

 tic monism. 



