The Making of Species 



vol. xxvi., No. 3, of the Archiv fiir Ent- 

 wicklungsmechanik des Organismen, states : 

 " The dogma that acquired characters cannot 

 be inherited ... is founded not so much on 

 evidence, or the absence of evidence, as on a 

 priori reasoning, on the supposed difficulty or 

 impossibility of conceiving a means by which 

 such inheritance could be effected." Such 

 appears certainly to be true of some zoologists, 

 but we trust that Mr Cunningham will do us the 

 justice to believe that our opinion that the in- 

 heritance of acquired characters does not play 

 an important part in the evolution of, at any 

 rate, the higher animals, is based, not on the 

 ground of a priori reasoning, but on facts. 

 All the evidence seems to show that such 

 characteristics are not inherited. If, as Mr 

 Cunningham thinks, all secondary sexual 

 characters are due to the inheritance of the 

 effects of use, etc., how is it that no Neo- 

 Lamarckian is able to bring forward a clear 

 case of the inheritance of a well-defined acquired 

 character ? If such characteristics are habitually 

 inherited, countless examples should be forth- 

 coming. Fanciers in their endeavours are con- 

 stantly " doctoring " the animals they keep for 

 show purposes ; and it seems to us certain that 

 if acquired characters are inherited, breeders 

 would long ago have discovered this and acted 

 upon the discovery. If Neo- Darwinians are 



20 





