Characters, Hereditary and Acquired. 61 



inheritance of acquired characters. This however, 

 will have to be considered in its proper place further 

 on. Meanwhile I shall say merely in general terms 

 that it arises almost entirely from a confusion of 

 the doctrine of Continuity as absolute with that of 

 Continuity as partial, and therefore as admitting of 

 degrees in different cases — which, as already ex- 

 plained, are doctrines wide as the poles asunder. 

 But, leaving aside for the present such prima facie 

 evidence as Weismann has adduced on his side 

 of the issue, I may quote him as a hostile witness 

 to the weight of this kind of evidence per contra^ 

 in so far as it has already been presented in the 

 foregoing chapter. Indeed, Weismann is much too 

 logical a thinker not to perceive the cogency of 

 the " appearances " which lie against his view of 

 Continuity as absolute — although he has not been 

 sufficiently careful in distinguishing bet\yeen such 

 Continuity and that which admits of degrees. 



We may take it, then, as agreed on all hands that 

 whatever weight mercXy prima facie evidence may in 

 this matter be entitled to, is on the side of what 

 I have termed moderated Lamarckianism : first sight 

 " appearances ' are against the Neo-Darwinian doc- 

 trine of the absolute non-inheritance of acquired 

 characters. 



Let us now turn to another and much more 

 important line of mdirect evidence in favour of 

 moderated Lamarckianism. 



The difficulty of excluding the possibility of na- 

 tural selection having been at work in the case of 

 wild plants and animals has already been noticed. 



