XXIX 



WITH DARWIN FORWARDS 



IT is difficult not to sympathize with the idea 

 that there must be some hereditary entail- 

 ment of at least a representation of many of the 

 individual gains made by living creatures during 

 their lifetime. It is difficult to shut out the belief 

 that individual experience must somehow count in 

 racial evolution. Thus it is not surprising that we 

 should often hear the slogan " Back to Lamarck! 'V 

 The importance of the questions raised is so great 

 that no apology is needed for an attempt to suggest, 

 the other side of the case. We must remember 

 Herbert Spencer's conviction, that " a right answer 

 to the question whether acquired characters are or 

 are not inherited underlies right beliefs, not only in 

 Biology and Psychology, but also in Education, 

 Ethics, and Politics. ... A grave responsibility 

 rests on biologists in respect of the general question, 

 since wrong answers lead, among other effects, to 

 wrong belief about social affairs, and to disastrous 

 social actions." These words should remove all 

 trace of polemical argumentation from our inquiry. 

 The central question is this : Does a structural or 

 functional change directly induced in the body of an 

 individual organism as the result of some peculiarity 



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