44 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



Upon this series of brilliant speculations and startling asser- 

 tions, including much that it has been impossible for me to 

 bring forward, has been founded the school of Neo-Darwinism. 

 In Germany they attracted comparatively little attention, in 

 France none, but in England they have become almost a shib- 

 boleth in the mouths of a large class of leading biologists. 



It unfortunately requires something more than mere truth to 

 arouse enthusiasm in many minds, and however much it may 

 be di.sclaimed, it cannot probably be justly denied that the 

 peculiar position of prominence and honor which this theory 

 gives to the doctrine of natural selection, conceived and elab- 

 orated by Englishmen, had much to do with its especial charm 

 for English ears. It is not to be supposed that Weismann de- 

 liberately bid for applause from England, but he could clearly 

 see the tendency of his doctrines to exalt natural selection. 

 He does not allude to this in any of his earlier essays, nor 

 until he had begun to observe the effect his writings were pro- 

 ducing in England. In the preface to liis nfth essay, dated 

 Nov. 22, 1885, however, he says : " The transmission or non- 

 transmission of acquired characters must be of the highest im- 

 portance for a theory of heredity, and therefore for the true 

 appreciation of the causes which lead to the transformation of 

 species. Any one who believes, as I do, that acquired charac- 

 ters are not transmitted, will be compelled to assume that the 

 process of natural selection has had a far larger share in the 

 transformation of species than has been as yet accorded to it ; 

 for if such characters are not transmitted the modifying in- 

 fluence of external circumstances in many cases remains re- 

 stricted to the individual, and cannot have any part in produc- 

 ing transformation" (pp. 252-253). And in the last essay of 

 this series, originally delivered in September, 1888, he further 

 remarks : ' ' But if the transmission of acquired characters is 



