42 2 Eimer on Growth and InJieritance 



pointed out which are not useful to their possessors, but also 

 that all adaptations are due to the inheritance of acquired 

 characters. 



*What,' he asks, 'is the use of the coiling of the shell and the 

 torsion of the organs in the greater number of Gasteropods % Pro- 

 fessor Lankester has admitted recently, in the pages of Nature, that 

 he has been teaching for mariy years that this torsion was due to a 

 mechanical cause, namely, the weight of the shell over to one side, 

 without realising that the explanation was Lamarckian.^ Now that 

 it has been pointed out to him that such an explanation is incon- 

 sistent with the theory of Natural Selection, he admits that he can find 

 no explanation of the phenomenon which would be consistent with 

 that theory.' 



We may, indeed, ask with him what is the use of that 

 scrotal character whereby various mammalia differ from all 

 other animals ? What is the use of phosphorescence to 

 pelagic animals ? What is the use of that fragihty of 

 Ophiurid star-fishes which has gained them the name of 

 brittle-stars ? A great deal has been said about the utiUty 

 of the colour of flat fishes; but the soles in aquaria are 

 nearly always buried in the sand on which they live ; they 

 come out mostly at night, when, to our eyes at least, no 

 colours can be distinguished: and when they move about 

 by day, they are almost always covered with a thin layer of 

 sand sprinkled over their upper sides, by which their colour 

 is concealed. 



But what can be the good of the white colour of the lower 

 side ? This is usually concealed, and when by their rising 

 to feed it is displayed, they thereby become conspicuous to 

 their enemies. 



A powerful argument against Weismann's view may be 



* Lamarck taught that new powers and structures were due to the inherit- 

 ance of modifications induced by circumstances in parent organisms. This 

 is, of course, deadly heresy in the eyes of Weismann, while in those of Eimer 

 it is the first article of the orthodox faith. 



