98 THE CONTROL OF LIFE 



the modification tliat the parent acquired, or even an 

 approximation towards it. There are not many ques- 

 tions more important than this. Herbert Spencer wrote : 

 " A right answer to the question whether acquired 

 characters are or are not inherited underlies right beUefs, m 

 not only in Biology and Psychology, but also in Educa- 

 tion, Ethics, and Politics." With unwonted rashness he 

 also said : " Either there has been inheritance of acquired 

 characters, or there has been no evolution." 



Now it is certain that the transmission of individually 

 acquired modifications to any readily observable degree 

 is not a common occurrence. It is possible that it 

 occurs rarely ; it is possible that it occurs in a degree 

 so minute that the entailment is not readily observed. 

 The subject has been much discussed for nearly half a 

 century, and a few very careful experiments have been 

 made, yet it cannot be said that the evidence adduced in 

 support of the affirmative position is convincing. Many, 

 if not most, biologists remain unconvinced, not through 

 any unwillingness to recognise the possibility, as 

 Darwin did, but because the evidence is unsatisfactory. 

 There is no reason to close the question dogmatically 

 with an absolutely negative answer, but it does not 

 seem to us that the evidence in support of the affirmative 

 or Lamarckian position — that modifications may be 

 transmitted in some representative degree — ^is at present 

 convincing. 



Indirect Arguments in Favour of an Acceptance of 

 the Lamarchian View. — In the absence, so far as we 

 know, of clear-cut evidence showing the transmissibility 



