SOME MISUNDERSTANDINGS CONSIDERED 179 



§ 4. Many Misunderstandings as to the Question at Issue 



The precise question is this : Can a structural change in the 

 body, induced by some change in use or disuse, or by a change in 

 surrounding influence, affect the germ-cells in such a specific or 

 representative way that the offspring will through its inheritance 

 exhibit, even in a slight degree, the modification which the parent 

 acquired ? 



Before we pass to discuss the evidence pro and con it will 

 be useful to notice some frequently recurring misunderstandings, 

 the persistence of which would make further argument futile. 



Misunderstanding I — How can there be progressive evolution 

 if acquired characters are not transmitted ? — Those who have 

 not thought clearly on the subject often shake their heads sagely 

 and remark that they " do not see how evolution could have 

 been possible at all unless what is acquired by one generation 

 is handed on to the next." To this we have simply to 

 answer (1) that our first business is to find out the facts of the 

 case, careless whether it makes our interpretation of the history 

 of life more or less difficult, and (2) that in the supply of 

 germinal variations, whose transmissibility is unquestioned, 

 there is ample raw material for evolution. We know a little 

 about the abundant crop of variations at present supplied ; 

 there is no reason to believe that it was less abundant in the 

 past. 



Misunderstanding II — Interpretations are not facts. — There 

 are many adaptive characters in plants and animals which 

 may be superficially interpreted as due to the direct result 

 of use and disuse or of environmental influence. The 

 Lamarckians have so interpreted them, and the Lamarckian 

 way of looking at adaptations has become habitual to many 

 uncritical minds. They see on modern flowers the footprints 

 of insects which have visited them for untold ages ; they speak 

 of the dwindling of the whale's hind-limbs through disuse, of 



