CHAP, xviii A "FAIRY TALE OF SCIENCE"? 233 



" the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for 

 life." If there is no struggle for life, and no preservation 

 of a favoured race, neither is there any natural selection. 

 Weismann's usage is worse than " extreme laxity." It 

 aims at finding something cabalistic in natural selec- 

 tion, something talismanic. He must be reminded that, 

 according to Comte, " nature " is the supreme example 

 of an empty abstraction by which "metaphysical" 

 persons think to explain phenomena, while giving no 

 explanation at all. Weismann is a " metaphysician " of 

 that type. He uses the phrase in lieu of an explana- 

 tion, not knowing, and not caring to know, what he 

 means by it. 



In taking leave of Weismann's fairy tale, it may be 

 desirable to name one by one his characteristic positions, 

 and to add in regard to each whether he still retained it 

 in 1893, or had modified it, or had cancelled it. 



First, Weismann used to hold that protozoa and pro- 

 tophyta unicellular nucleated plants and animals, the 

 lowest forms of life known to us were exempt from 

 natural selection, and were subject to the agency of 

 environment as a source of variations. Convinced by 

 the experiments and arguments of other writers that 

 conjugation and natural selection were both at work in 

 these creatures, he has come to postulate still simpler 

 forms of life unknown to observation creatures without 

 even a nucleus creatures (though not the only creatures) 

 which are potentially immortal. Now, it is an immense 

 weakness to have to postulate unknown forms of the 

 living organism. Yet perhaps it may be contended 

 that this one addition to the theory is sufficiently logical 

 and coherent. Even in the protozoa and protophyta, as 

 an unscientific person might say, " germ plasm " is 



