The Making of Species 



acquired characters are not commonly inherited 

 in those organisms in which there is a sharp 

 distinction between the germinal and the somatic 

 cells. 



It is nothing short of a misfortune that 

 Haeckel's History of Creation, which seems to 

 be so widely read in England, should be built 

 on a fallacious foundation. It seems to us that 

 this work is calculated to mislead rather than to 

 teach. 



Our attitude is not quite that of the Wallaceian 

 school, which denies the possibility of the in- 

 heritance of acquired characters. In practice, 

 however, the attitude we adopt is as fatal to 

 Lamarckism in all its forms as the dogmatic 

 assertions of the Wallaceians. It matters not 

 whether acquired characters are very rarely or 

 never inherited. In either case their inherit- 

 ance cannot have played an important part in 

 evolution. All those theories which rely on use- 

 inheritance as a factor in evolution are therefore 

 in our opinion worthless, being opposed to facts. 

 Our attitude, then, is that the inheritance of 

 acquired characteristics, if it does occur, is so 

 rare as to be a negligible quantity in organic 

 evolution. 



We may add that the position which we occupy 

 will not be affected even if the Lamarckians do 

 succeed eventually in proving that some acquired 

 characters are really inherited. Such proof would 



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