WITH DARWIN FORWARDS 223 



hold a position of skepticism as to the transmissi- 

 bility of acquired characters. This skepticism was 

 early hinted at by Kant, His, Pritchard, and others, 

 and afterwards expressed in a masterly way by 

 Galton and by Weismann. For many years there 

 continued a searching criticism of case after case 

 of alleged transmission of acquired characters, and 

 now there is widespread agreement with Sir Ray 

 Lankester's pronouncement, that one of the notable 

 advances of post-Darwinian aetiology has been 

 getting rid of all trace of the Lamarckian theory 

 of the transmission of individually acquired char- 

 acters or somatic modifications. Of recent years, 

 however, there have been many, and of course 

 welcome, signs of a " Back to Lamarck " reaction, 

 originating perhaps in Samuel Butler, and diversely 

 expressed by Semon, Cunningham, Hartog, Francis 

 Darwin, Bergson, Russell, Darbishire, and others. 

 We may be permitted to refer in particular to 

 Rignano, the genial, indefatigable, and disinterested 

 editor of the brilliant journal Scientia a sound 

 organon of pacific internationalism. Now, back to 

 Lamarck let us certainly go to try to understand 

 his position more thoroughly, as Russell has done in 

 his Form and Function (1916). Back to Lamarck 

 let us certainly go in order to discover whether we 

 cannot, without disloyalty to the known facts, 

 re-utilize the Adriadne thread which guided the early 

 explorer of the evolution-labyrinth. But do. not 

 let us return to Lamarck by brushing aside forty 

 years' skeptical scrutiny of evidence, or under a 



