I'KKSiDENTIAL ADDKKSS. 51 



NEO-DARWINISM.* 



We will next briefly pass in review the extraordinary dis 

 cussion which has followed chiefly from the publication of 

 Weismann's essays. As already remarked, they produced very 

 little influence upon the German mind, and most German in 

 vestigators who noticed them at all, either saw little in them, 

 or else attacked them with greater or less violence. It is 

 almost exclusively in England that they have found favor, and 

 here a veritable school of biologists has sprung into existence 

 prepared to defend even the most extreme of Weismann's 

 theories. It is due to the German investigator to say that, 

 with the exception of the slight tendency above pointed out to 

 dogmatize on the subject of the non-transmissibility of acquired 

 characters, his essays are dignified and courteous and often 

 evince an almost Darwinian modesty with regard to his own 

 theories. Far different was the case with most of his English 

 disciples. What he states as probable they assert as forever 

 settled, and his working hypotheses become for them the funda 

 mental truths of science. His papers were translated and re 

 viewed, usually in an aggressive manner before any one had 

 ventured to criticise them. Being usually beyond the reach of 

 any but the embryological specialist all except ardent disciples 

 reserved their judgment and declined to enter the field. At 

 first there was an attempt to make it appear that Weismann's 

 views reflected only those of Darwin himself and that all out 

 side of them consisted in deviations and wanderings from his 

 doctrines. It was sought to stamp them with the name of 



* The expression Neo- Darwinian was first used, so far as I am aware, 

 by Dr. G. J. Romanes in a letter to Nature for Aug. 30, 1888 (Vol. 

 XXVIII, p. 413), and occurs frequently in subsequent discussions. The 

 substantive form Neo-Darwinism was a natural "outgrowth from it. 



