AMERICA AND EVOLUTION 3 



brata ; Hall, Hyatt, and Walcott in the Inverte- 

 brata. The study of American Palaeontology 

 was at first believed to support a Neo-Lamarckian 

 view of evolution, but this, as well as the hypo- 

 thesis of polyphyletic or multiple origins (see 

 Appendix A, p. 247), was undermined by the 

 teachings of Weismann. Difficulties for which 

 the Lamarckian theory had been invoked were 

 met by the hypothesis of Organic Selection, sug- 

 gested by Baldwin and Osborn, and in England 

 by Lloyd Morgan. Weismann's contention that 

 inherent characters are alone transmissible by 

 heredity has also received strong support from 

 the immense body of Cytological, Mendelian, and 

 Mutationist work to which other addresses to be 

 delivered to-day will bear eloquent testimony. 1 

 Finally, the flourishing school of American Psy- 

 chology, under the leadership of William James 

 and James Mark Baldwin, accepts, and in accept- 

 ing helps to confirm, the theory of Natural 

 Selection. 



ERASMUS DARWIN AND LAMARCK 



Professor Henry F. Osborn, in his interesting 

 work, From the Greeks to Darwin, concludes that 

 Lamarck was unaware of Erasmus Darwin's Zoo- 

 nomia, and that the parallelism of thought is 

 a coincidence. 2 The following passage from 



1 The addresses referred to are published in Fifty Years of 

 Darwinism, New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1909. 



2 From the Greeks to Darwin, New York, 1894, 152-5. Professor 

 Osborn shows on p. 145 that Erasmus Darwin made use of the term 



B 2 



