icx) Darwin, and after Darwin. 



ticular notice that the year after I had pubh'shed 

 these articles on the Cessation of Selection, and 

 discussed with Mr. Darwin the bearing of this prin- 

 ciple on the question of the transmission of acquired 

 characters, Mr. Galton followed with his highly 

 important essay on Heredity. For in this essay 

 Mr. Galton fully adopted the principle of the Cessa- 

 tion of Selection, and was in consequence the first 

 publicly to challenge the Lamarckian principles — 

 pointing out that, if it were thus possible to deny 

 the transmission of acquired characters in toto, " we 

 should be relieved from all further trouble"; but 

 that, if such characters are transmitted " in however 

 faint a degree, a complete theory of heredity must 

 account for them." Thus the question which, in its 

 revived condition, is now attracting so much attention, 

 was propounded in all its parts some fifteen or six- 

 teen years ago ; and no additional facts or new 

 considerations of any great importance bearing upon 

 the subject have been adduced since that time. In 

 other words, about a year after my own conversations 

 with Mr. Darwin, the whole matter was still more 

 effectively brought before his notice by his own 

 cousin. And the result was that he still retained his 

 belief in the Lamarckian factors of organic evolution, 

 even more strongly than it was retained either by 

 Mr. Galton or myself ^ 



We have now considered the line of evidence on 

 which Darwin chiefly relied in proof of the transmis- 

 sibility of acquired characters ; and it must be allowed 

 that this line of evidence is practically worthless. 



' For a fuller st.-itement of Mr. Galton's theory of Heredity, and its 

 relation to Weismann's, see An Examination of IVeismannism. 



