NEO-DARWINISIVI AND NEO-LAMARCKISM.* 



By Lester F. Ward. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



In casting about for a subject on which to address this 

 Society I have encountered serious difficulties. A presidential 

 address to a Biological Society should, as it seems to me, fol- 

 low one of two courses. It should either relate in its general 

 aspects to the subject with which its author is most familiar, 

 and so coordinate the facts within his specialty as to correlate 

 them with the sum-total of biological science ; or else, it should 

 be an exposition of and commentary upon the most prominent 

 problem of biology which at the time of its presentation, is en- 

 grossing the attention of the scientific world. One year ago I 

 realized these two alternatives as clearly as I do now, and I felt 

 then that while the second of them was not more appropriate 

 than the first, the overwhelming prominence of one great biolog- 

 ical question almost demanded that I should sink my individual 

 preferences and, as a matter of sheer duty, undertake to grap- 

 ple with that question. But I have always believed and often 

 said that the Biological vSociety should choose as its president 

 one who represents the whole science of biology, and that it 

 made a mistake in selecting a narrow specialist, and a special- 

 ist in a department which has the reputation of not keeping 



* Annual Presidential Address delivered at the Eleventh Anniversary 

 Meeting of the Biological Society of Washington, January 24, 1891, in 

 the Law Lecture Room of the CDlumbian University. 



