25 ESSAYS SCIENTIFIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL. 



The facts are explainable either on Weismann's 

 view of Heredity, or that of Lamarck, though our 

 judgment as to the guilt is different. According to 

 Weismann's theory the capacity for kicking a 

 father out of doors would have been transmitted 

 from some abnormally ungrateful protozoan, to 

 whom that capacity must have been of use. And 

 though no doubt the man should have checked 

 and not exulted in the development of the capacity, 

 nothing that he could have done would have 

 prevented his handing it on to his son. On the 

 Lamarckian theory, each generation would, by use 

 or disuse, have increased the inherent capacity for 

 the exercise. And the effort of the individual to 

 repress it or keep it within strict limits, would 

 have also done something towards getting rid of 

 a hurtful tendency. A part of the fascination 

 which Lamarckianism has for some people is 

 probably due to the fact that by this doctrine of 

 use and disuse, and the transmission of acquired 

 characters, it makes the individual really responsible, 

 if only in part, for his children as well as for himself, 

 and leaves room for the possibility of the extermi- 

 nation of vicious qualities in the species by influences 

 brought to bear upon the individual. 



But on Weismann's theory it is different. As- 

 suming that an inherited tendency to kick one's 

 father out of doors is, at the present stage of 

 development, no longer for the good of the species, 



