HISTORICAL NOTE 167 



Experiment is doubtless most urgent, but misunderstandings 

 in regard to the problem are still so prevalent that we take 

 courage in attempting a re-discussion, from which we have tried 

 to eliminate obscurity and prejudice. 



2. Historical Note 



Doubt as to the transmission of acquired characters is certainly 

 not novel, though Galton and Weismann deserve credit for 

 denning the scepticism. 



Brock has pointed out that the editor, whoever he was, 

 of Aristotle's Historia Animalium seems to have differed 

 from his master on this subject. Aristotle had referred to the 

 transmission of the exact shape of a cautery mark, but the 

 editor insinuated a doubt as to credibility of instances of this 

 sort. 



Kant. In modern times Kant was one of the first to express 

 a firm disbelief in the transmission of individual peculiarities ; 

 Blumenbach inclined to the same opinion ; but neither seems 

 to have defined precisely what he intended to exclude from the 

 bundle of inheritance. 



Prichard. James Cowles Prichard (b. 1786), a well-known 

 anthropologist, anticipated as early as 1826 some of the character- 

 istically modern views on evolution. His importance has been 

 pointed out by Prof. Edward B. Poulton. In the second 

 edition of his Researches into the Physical History of Mankind 

 (1826), Prichard stated the case in favour of the general evolu- 

 tionist interpretation of animate nature, recognised the operation 

 of natural and artificial selection, and not only drew a clear 

 distinction between acquired and inborn peculiarities, but argued 

 that the former were not transmitted. He was not rigidly 

 consistent, however, and his convictions seem to have weakened 

 in after years ; yet his anticipation of one of Weismann 's positions 

 by more than half a century is very interesting. 



In more recent times we find sporadic expressions of scepticism 



