TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 



Weismann is reduced to find a reply to the evidence against 

 him. For my own part, I do not think it is of very great 

 importance whether artificial malformations are inherited or 

 not. I think it probable that in the higher animals such 

 inheritance does sometimes take place. Professor Weismann 

 mentions the feet of Chinese ladies, which he says are still 

 when uncompressed as large as if the practice of artificially 

 compressing them had not been practised for centuries. But 

 he does not tell us whether he ever saw a Cliinese young 

 lady, or if he has made any observations on the feet of 

 Chinese women. The fact that artificial malformations are 

 not usually inherited is no argument against the inheritance 

 of acquired characters. In all animals, from the lowest up 

 to reptiles, recrescence of lost parts takes place, and the 

 reappearace of lost parts in the next generation in mammals 

 and birds seems to me to be simply recrescence slightly 

 postponed. 



Weismann says that the faculty of speech and skill in 

 pianoforte-playing are not inherited. It is true that babies 

 are not born in the act of playing pianofortes, and no one 

 would expect that they should be. But that particular 

 kinds of musical skill run in particular families is admitted. 

 It is true also that children have to be taught to sj^eak, as 

 they have to be taught to walk upright. But no amount of 

 teaching would cause a young monkey to speak. The 

 capacity for learning to speak and for speaking is inherited 

 by children, and it is making too great a demand on our 

 faith to ask us to believe that the peculiarities of vocal 

 organs and nervous system on which this capacity depends 

 are due to sexual mixture and selection. 



Does Professor Weismann believe that birds inherit the 



