The Wallaceian School 



merely help to elucidate some of the problems 

 which confront the biologist. Thus the question 

 of the inheritance of acquired characters, while 

 full of interest, has no very important bearing 

 on the question of the making of species. 



The Wallaceians hold the doctrines which 

 have been set forth above as those of the Neo- 

 Darwinian school. It is incorrect to call those 

 who pin their faith to the all-sufficiency of natural 

 selection Neo-Darwinians, because Darwin at no 

 time believed that natural selection explained 

 everything. Darwin moreover was a Lamarckian 

 to the extent that he was inclined to think that 

 acquired characteristics could be inherited. His 

 theory of inheritance by gemmules involved the 

 assumption that such characters are inherited. 

 It is Wallace who out-Darwins Darwin, who 

 preaches the all-sufficiency of natural selection. 

 For this reason we dub the school which holds 

 this article of belief, and to which Weismann, 

 Poulton, and apparently Ray Lankester belong, 

 the Wallaceian school. Weismann has put forth 

 a theory of inheritance, that of the continuity 

 of the germ plasm, which makes this inheritance 

 a physical impossibility. We believe that the 

 Wallaceians have erred as far from the truth as 

 the Lamarckians have, because, as we shall show 

 hereafter, a great many of the organs and struc- 

 tures displayed by organisms cannot be explained 

 on the natural selection hypothesis. Those who 



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