MISREPRESENTATION OF DARWINISM 155 



Northern Europe that have been subjected to a slum en- 

 vironment, none have probably suffered more or for a longer 

 time than the Jews. They were kept in slums throughout 

 the Middle Ages until almost modern times. Yet the Jews 

 show no signs of physical deterioration as a race. Jew 

 children are at least as healthy as the children of other 

 races in the north of Europe. 



One of the most curious points about the controversy as 

 to whether or not acquired characters are transmissible is, 

 that the majority of the upholders of the view that the 

 acquired characters of the parent are transmitted, either 

 do not take the trouble or are unable to understand the 

 theory advocated by those who disagree with them. The 

 simplest way of making this clear, is to quote from and 

 criticise the very recently expressed arguments and opinions 

 of a well-known upholder of the Lamarckian theory. He 

 quotes the case of certain fishes living in caves where light 

 never penetrates. In these fishes the eyes have disappeared 

 as functional organs, though traces of them remain, showing 

 that their ancestors possessed functional eyes. The writer 

 in question, having said that the followers of Weismann will 

 not allow that the environment has any share in the pro- 

 duction of new characters, gives the following satirical in- 

 terpretation of what he believes to be the Neo-Darwinian 

 explanation of the degeneration of the eyes of these fish : 

 " But in this retrogression the circumstance of darkness has 

 no share. It exercises no influence. The retrogression and 

 atrophy of the eyes is a ' spontaneous ' variation, or rather 

 it is the consequence of a long series of ' spontaneous ' varia- 

 tions all in the same direction, with which the circumstance 

 of darkness has nothing to do. The variation just happens 

 to occur. Natural selection exterminates the individuals 

 with efficient eyes, and by a happy accident ' spontaneous ' 



" The evidence before us as to the causation of feeble-mindedness gave, as a 

 whole, no support to the popular view of bad hygiene, alcoholism, &c., being 

 in any sense productive of racial or filial degeneration, however harmful such 

 agencies are to the individuals who are subject to them." 



