Art and Science 



lost in distinctiveness, and after all he did 

 technically put us upon our guard. 



Nevertheless he too at a pinch takes refuge 

 in Lamarckism. In relation to the manner in 

 which the eyes of soles, turbots, and other 

 flat-fish travel round the head so as to become 

 in the end unsymmetrically placed, he says : 



"The eyes of these fish are curiously dis- 

 torted in order that both eyes may be upon 

 the upper side, where alone they would be of 

 any use. . . . Now if we suppose this process, 

 which in the young is completed in a few days 

 or weeks, to have been spread over thousands 

 of generations during the development of these 

 fish, those usually surviving whose eyes retained 

 more and more of the position into which the 

 young fish tried to twist them [italics mine], 

 the change becomes intelligible." 1 When it 

 was said by Professor Ray Lankester who 

 knows as well as most people what Lamarck 

 taught that this was "flat Lamarckism," 

 Mr. Wallace rejoined that it was the survival 

 of the modified individuals that did it all, not 

 the efforts of the young fish to twist their 



1 " Darwinism" (Macmillan, 1889), p. 129. 

 259 



