52 BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 



"pure Darwinism,"* and the reader was frequently informed 

 what Darwin reall}- intended to say in certain passages which 

 could not otherwise be made to harmonize with the new doc- 

 trine, and even in some still more refractor}^ passages we are 

 told what we would have said "if it had occurred to him." f 



In default of any real opponent the Duke of Argyll, with his 

 strong theological bias, his medieval spirit of logomachy, and 

 his total lack of scientific ideas, was called out and set up as a 

 sort of man of straw to be repeatedly demolished. But like 

 the shadows in the valley of Walhalla, he emerged each time 

 unscathed and renewed the deathless struggle. His presence 

 in the arena had the further advantage for the new school of 

 affording them an opportunitj^ to point to him as a sample of 

 the opponents of Weismann. 



Against all this a few protests were raised from time to time 

 and after the appearance of the English edition of the essays 

 a few able and critical analyses were made. But the general 

 character of the discussion as it has gone on in the columns of 

 Nature and in the British magazines is such as I have de- 

 scribed. The only other prominent or frequent contributor in 

 answer to the disciples of Weismann is Dr. G. J. Romanes, 

 and he has been more especially concerned with defending his 

 priority to the idea which he has elaborated under the name 

 of Physiological Selection, and to the discussion of certain 

 phases of the law of panmixia which he claims to have dis- 

 covered. It would, however, be unjust to deny that the dis- 

 cussion has been of value to science, since, had it done no 

 more than to attract wide attention to so momentous a question 

 it could not have been without its uses. 



'^Nature, Vol. XXXVIII, Aug. i6, 1888, p. 364 ; Aug. 23, 1888, p. 388 ; 

 Vol. XL, pp. 567, 619. 



t See Nature, VoL XLI, March 27, 1890, pp. 487, 48S. 



