PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. > 53 



NEO-LAMARCKISM.* 



Let us inquire what has really been done from first to last 

 toward the demonstration, or scientific establishment of the law 

 of transmission of functionally acquired characters and the 

 preservation through heredity of the modifications produced 

 by changes in the environment. It will not be necessary to 

 go back to Lamarck as his presentation of the subject has been 

 sufficiently dwelt upon. But I cannot agree with some recent 

 writers that Lamarck was defending a totally different prin- 

 ciple from that which is being defended to-day. It is true that 

 Neo-Lamarckians recognize natural selection as an equalh\ 

 and in some respects far more potent law, although, as has 

 been justlj^ insisted upon, it does not explain the cause of the 

 variations of which it makes use. The Lamarckian principle 

 does this, so far as it goes, and affords a true mechanical, <hat 

 is, scientific explanation of the origin of species. 



After Darwin himself, whose methods were always those of 

 the true naturalist, unquestionably the most successful defender 

 of this view is Mr. Herbert Spencer, whose methods are alwaj-s 

 those of the true philosopher. A man of such originalit}' would 

 be incapable of approaching the subject from the same stand- 

 point as any of his predecessors, and we find him evolving this 

 law from his great general scheme of mechanical cosmolog}', 

 in which it appears as one of the equilibrating forces of the 

 organic world. It is his law of " direct equilibration," natural 

 selection forming a second law of "indirect equilibration." 



* Prof. A. S. Packard is believed to be the first to use the term Neo- 

 LaniarckiaJi. This he did in the introduction to the vStandard Natural 

 Histor}- (Vol. I, Boston, p. iii) in 1885, and on page iv he adopts the sub- 

 stantive form Neo-Lamarckianism. As the word Lauiarckis})i had 

 already been long in use the shorter form A^co- Lainarckisni should be 

 preferred. 



