n.] HEREDITY, CONDITIONAL 21 



Darwinians often maintain that the supposed 

 acquired character reappears in an offspring 

 only because the same conditions act on the 

 offspring as on the parent, and, therefore, all 

 that is acquired is the capacity for reproducing 

 the characters. The answer to this is that 

 the acquired character may or may not be 

 inherited. The difference depends on the time, 

 i.e., number of generations to which the plant 

 has been subjected about six years is the 

 average with cultivators. The reader will find 

 several instances of both kinds herein recorded. 

 There is nothing, therefore, in Mr Thomson's 

 book which affects plants, whether it be true 

 or not with regard to animals, with which I 

 have nothing to do. 1 



Mr J. Arthur Thomson wrote an article 

 called " Synthetic Summary of the Influence 

 of the Environment upon the Organism," 2 and 

 concluded as follows : 



" This much seems certain, that no attempt 

 to explain the adaptation of the organism to 

 its environment can be complete without a 

 recognition that external influences in the widest 

 sense, and in various degrees of directness, have 

 and have had an important transforming and 

 adaptive action." 



To this I cordially agree. 



1 Mr Thomson refers to my book " The Origin of Floral Structures 

 by Insect and other Agencies," gives a wrong date, and ignores "The 

 Origin of Plant Structures." 



2 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society, Edinburgh, vol. ix., 

 pt. 3, 1888. 



