C32 APPENDIX B. 



decrease. Where now are the facts supporting this assertion ? 

 Not one has been assigned or can be assigned. Not a single case 

 can be named in which panmixia is a proved cause of diminution. 

 Even had the deductive argument for panmixia been as valid 

 as we have found it to be invalid, there would still have been 

 required, in pursuance of scientific method, some verifying in 

 ductive evidence. Yet, though not a shred of such evidence 

 has been given, the doctrine is accepted with acclamation, and 

 adopted as part of current biological theory. Articles are writ 

 ten and letters published in which it is assumed that this mere 

 speculation, justified by not a tittle of proof, displaces la|ge con 

 clusions previously drawn. And then, passing into the outer 

 world, this unsupported belief affects opinions there too ; so that 

 we have recently had a Right Honourable lecturer who, taking 

 for granted its truth, represents the inheritance of acquired char 

 acters as an exploded hypothesis, and proceeds to give revised 

 views of human affairs. 



Finally, there comes the reply that there are facts proving the 

 inheritance of acquired characters. All those assigned by Mr. 

 Darwin, together with others such, remain outstanding when we 

 find that the interpretation by panmixia is untenable. Indeed, 

 even had that hypothesis been tenable, it would have been inap 

 plicable to these cases ; since in domestic animals, artificially fed 

 and often overfed, the supposed advantage from economy cannot 

 be shown to tell ; and since, in these cases, individuals are not 

 naturally selected during the struggle for life, in which certain 

 traits are advantageous, but are artificially selected by man with 

 out regard to such traits. Should it be urged that the assigned 

 facts are not numerous, it may be replied that there are no per 

 sons whose occupations and amusements incidentally bring out 

 such facts ; and that they are probably as numerous as those 

 which would have been available for Mr. Darwin s hypothesis, 

 had there been no breeders and fanciers and gardeners who, in 

 pursuit of their profits and hobbies, furnished him with evidence. 

 It may be added that the required facts are not likely to be 

 numerous, if biologists refuse to seek for them. 



See, then, how the case stands. Natural selection, or survival 

 of the fittest, is almost exclusively operative throughout the 

 vegetal world and throughout the lower animal world, charac 

 terized by relative passivity. But with the ascent to higher 

 types of animals, its effects are in increasing degrees involved 

 with those produced by inheritance of acquired characters ; 

 until, in animals of complex structures, inheritance of acquired 

 characters becomes an important, if not the chief, cause of evo 

 lution. We have seen that natural selection cannot Avork any 

 changes in organisms save such as conduce in considerable 



