APPENDIX II 359 



of the British Association. It is one in which medical men and the 

 community at large are to-day very immediately concerned, one in 

 which our voice has a right to be heard and our experience to be 

 seriously weighed and considered, instead of being contemptuously 

 spurned as coming from outside the pale ; one in which we look for 

 dependable leadership from men of the status of Sir Ray Lankester, 

 and not receiving it must take the lead ourselves. To quote from 

 Herbert Spencer's final words on the subject, 1 " And now I must 

 once more point out that a grave responsibility rests on biologists 

 in respect of the general question (inheritance), since wrong answers 

 lead, among other effects, to wrong beliefs about social affairs and 

 to disastrous social actions. In me this conviction is increasingly 

 strengthened. Though the Origin of Species proved to me that the 

 transmission of acquired characters cannot be the sole factor in 

 organic evolution, yet I have never wavered in the belief that it is 

 a factor, and an all-important factor. And I have felt more and 

 more that, since all the higher sciences are dependent on the science 

 of life and must have their conclusions vitiated if a fundamental 

 datum given to them by the teachers of this science is erroneous, it 

 behoves these teachers not to let an erroneous datum pass current." 

 To understand the full significance of what is here written I would 

 ask my readers to turn to Sir Ray's letter of last week's issue and 

 read it once again. — I am, etc., 



J. G. ADAMI, 



London, W. Lieut. -Colonel, C.A.M.C. 



III. From the British Mjedigal Journal, August 4, 1917 



To the Editor of the British Medical Journal. 



Sir — Dr. Adami is suffering from an illusion. I have never 

 had, and at present have not, the intention of discussing a scientific 

 theory with him. His manners and methods render that impossible. 

 My purpose in writing to you was to expose (as I explained in my 

 letter of July 14) the offences against the laws of social intercourse 

 of which he has been guilty in making public use of a confidential 

 communication from me without my permission and in using vulgar 

 ridicule and rhetorical abuse when entrusted by a learned and digni- 

 fied College with the privilege of addressing it. I also took occasion 

 to show that Dr. Adami erroneously claimed novelty for the view 

 that the activities of the bacteria are susceptible of change under 

 changed environment — a view which forty years ago I was one of the 

 first to advance, although Dr. Adami goes out of his way to declare 



1 In the Appendix to the last edition of the Principles of Biology. 



