46 ARE THE EFFECTS OF USE INHERITED ? 



Other excellent signs are the recent issue of a trans- 

 lation of Weismann's important essays on this and 

 kindred subjects, 1 the strong support given to his 

 views by Wallace in his Darwinism^ and their 

 adoption by Ray Lankester in his article on 

 Zoology in the latest edition of the Encyclopedia 

 Britannica. So sound and cautious an investigator 

 as Francis Galton had also in 1875 concluded 

 that " acquired modifications are barely, if at all, 

 inJierited, in the correct sense of that word." 



Darwin's belief in the inheritance of acquired 

 characters was more or less hereditary in the 

 family. His grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, an- 

 ticipated Lamarck's views in his Zoonomia, 

 which Darwin at one time " greatly admired." 

 His father was " convinced " of the " inherited evil 

 effects of alcohol," and to this extent at least he 

 strongly impressed the belief in the inheritance 



1 Weismann's Essays on Heredity &c. Clarendon Press, 

 1889. 



