EIMER ON GROWTH AND INHERITANCE. 



Organic Evolution as the Result of the Inheritance of Acquired 

 Characters. By Dr. G. H. Theodor Eimer. Translated by 

 J. T. Cunningham, M.A., RK.S.E. London, 1890. 



COULD 'the Father of Experimental Philosophy,' with 

 his Novum Organum under his arm, once more visit 

 the scenes of his earthly pilgrimage, he would certainly view 

 with a qualified approbation the present aspect of some 

 physical science. He would, no doubt, feel great delight at 

 the wonderful progress which has, in so many directions, 

 been achieved. He could hardly fail to be gratified by the 

 tributes to his method, and still more to his spirit, which he 

 would everywhere meet with. Nevertheless, when he came 

 to understand what the current scientific conceptions of our 

 day are, and what the nature of the questions most keenly 

 debated by the men who have caught the popular ear, his 

 surprise would not be an altogether pleasurable one. His 

 keen disapprobation would certainly be called forth by the 

 extent to which he would find that mere speculation had 

 passed beyond the safe and modest bounds of either direct 

 observation and experiment, or of sure and vahd inference. 

 In the first half of the present century the speculative 

 dreams of our Teutonic neighbours were trite subjects of 

 ridicule. We laughed, not without reason, at the farthing's- 

 worth of fact on which such an unconscionable quantity of 

 theory was too often based. But the century's second half 

 finds not a few Englishmen following suit, although, we 



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