Get} 
plation of its relation to one majestic example we are prepared 
for the belief that our subject is essential for the solution of all 
the widest and deepest problems concerned with organic nature 
asa whole. Secondly, the attempt for the first time to mar- 
shal the whole of the evidence supplied by the study of insects 
will make it possible to strengthen and amplify certain parts, 
and thus render the whole fabric better balanced and more 
stable. 
I should wish at the outset to express my indebtedness to 
the columns of ‘ Nature,” by means of which nearly the whole 
of the controversy has been followed, We are happy in the 
possession of a single journal in which discussions on general 
scientific questions are, by common consent, carried on. 
“ Acquired Characters” defined.—Before beginning a dis- 
cussion it is important to remove any possibility of doubt or 
uncertainty as to the precise meaning of the terms which are 
employed. The word “acquired” as used in this controversy has 
been the source of as much confusion as the word “ mimicry.” 
Just as almost every one who hears of “ mimicry” for the 
first time assumes that the word means a power of inten- 
tional imitation, so the inexperienced think that an acquired 
character is any new structure which a species has gained 
in the course of its history. “ Why should we not consider 
every character acquired as an ‘acquired character’ ?” they 
not unnaturally ask. And the answer is the same in both 
cases. Because these ordinary and untechnical words were 
given a special and technical meaning by the writers of 
memoirs which have become classical. In spite of all incon- 
venience both words are, in their scientific use, historic, and 
we must reckon with the fact that they have a special meaning 
which differs from their ordinary meaning. 
Erasmus Darwin was, I believe, the first to use “‘ acquired ” 
in this restricted sense. ‘‘ Fifthly,” he says, ‘‘all animals 
undergo transformations which are in part produced by their 
own exertions, in response to pleasures and pains, and many 
of these acquired forms or propensities are transmitted to 
posterity.”* Although Lamarck made a preliminary state- 
* “ Zoonomia,” 1794. Quoted by Professor H. F. Osborn, ‘‘ From the 
Greeks to Darwin.” New York, 1894, p. 145. 
